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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 



BIOGRAPHY 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY WITH INTRO- 
DUCTION BY W. MACDONALD 



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MEMOIRS^# 

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^ 



INTRODUCTION 

Though the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has 
been for over a hundred years a familiar and accepted 
English classic, this is the first occasion on which an 
edition 1 containing the authentic text of this celebrated 
work has been given to the world by an English publish- 
ing house. This will seem strange news to most readers ; 
and indeed there is a long and interesting story to tell 
in connection with it. That story fills very pleasantly 
some eighty prefatory pages in Mr. Bigelow's Life of 
Franklin ; but here our generosity must be more frugal, 
our entertainment more hurried. 

It was in 1771, in the seventh year of his second 
mission to England, and while spending a holiday at the 
country-seat of his friend, Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of 
St. Asaph, that Franklin set about writing some Recol- 
lections of his family and his own early life. The 
composition was addressed to his son William, at that 
time Governor of New Jersey, and was not intended to 
come under the eyes of the general world at all. The 
work, needless to say, gained a great deal by having 
thus originated as a sort of holiday gaiety, a long retro- 
spective chat, a budget of personal and moral memoranda, 
written for the gratification and the uses of his own folk 
at home. It does not appear that he had any thought 
of carrying the story further than the point which he 
brought it down to — namely, as far as page 84 of the 
present volume — in the course of this holiday labour. 
Apparently, he sent it to his son not long after, and 
thought no more about it. And, indeed, he soon had 
plenty to think about; for the difficult and troublous 
course of the public business with which he was presently 

1 The edition of 1905 issued by the present publishers, and from 
whose text this is reprinted. 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

connected was matter enough to engage his whole atten- 
tion. Then came his return to America, and the vivid 
and laborious days of the commencing Revolution. We 
next see him, with scarce a breathing space allowed, 
spirited back into the Old World to take up a new 
career of labours, difficulties, and anxieties, almost 
without parallel. But toward the end of this time an 
extraordinary thing happened; the manuscript which 
he had written at the Bishop of St. Asaph's some twelve 
years earlier, was returned to him from America by a 
Pennsylvanian Quaker, Mr. Abel James, into whose 
hands it had fallen. Through what adventures it had 
passed in the interval we do not know, but assuredly 
they were not without peril to a small sheaf of papers. 
At the beginning of the war the Governor of New Jersey 
had, as became his office, if not his birth, stood for the 
King against both his father and his country, and had 
behaved with so much provocation and defiance that 
his career, until he finally found his way to England, 
was, to say the least, not a comfortable one. There 
was a good deal of imprisonment; a good deal of hustling 
from this place to that; and, of course, confiscation, 
with the impounding or the scattering and destroying 
of papers. However, this paper, as the reader will see 
on turning to page 85, found its way into very good 
hands. 

The desire so seriously expressed by* Mr. James that 
this " so pleasing and profitable work " might be " con- 
tinued up to a later period " was fully shared by the 
friends, both French and English — Mr. Benjamin 
Vaughan and Dr. Price, M. le Veillard, the Due de la 
Rochefoucault, and others — to whom Franklin now 
showed the recovered manuscript. From this moment 
these were insistent in their demands upon him, then- 
entreaties, that he would recognise the finishing of these 
Memoirs as the chief duty which he owed to the world. 
So in 1784, when a greater work to which he had set his 
hand at a later time had just been happily concluded — 
when Independence was won, and peace negotiated, and 
his country accepted by all the world as a nation among 
the rest — he now yielded to the instance of these friends 

viii 



INTRODUCTION 

and set about to complete the Memoirs of his Life. 
What he was able to add at this time, however, while 
still residing at Passy, only amounts to eighteen pages 
(pp. 92-110) of the present volume. In the following 
year he returned to America; and his enthusiastic 
friends in Europe were compensated a little for the loss 
of his company by the hope that now he would be able 
to complete those Memoirs at last. But again his 
country forbade. In spite of age and intense physical 
sufferings, never long intermitted, he was dragged again 
into the conflict and toil of public life; so that for three 
years his European friends, ceaselessly importuning 
him in the same old cause, got little comfort in return 
except his promises and his hopes. During that time 
public affairs claimed practically every hour which was 
rendered effective by the intermissions of his malady. 
At last, in the late summer of 1788, he was able to take 
up the long interrupted work and made such headway 
that he brought the account down to page 199 as it is 
here printed. But after this, there was never again 
such an interval. The crushing pressure of pain was 
harder upon him than heretofore and left him fewer 
moments in which he could have the confidence to take 
up again a work requiring such a command of material 
and so many powers of the mind. Towards the end of 
theTfollowing year, the old man, reluctantly yet uncom- 
plainingly, surrenders the last hope of ever being able to 
finish the work now. But he tells M. le Veillard that 
his grandson is making a copy, as far as it goes, which 
shall be sent to him. Another copy was sent about the 
same time to Benjamin Vaughan, but what became of it 
is unknown. FranMin died in the following April, and 
the bulk of his books, papers, and manuscripts, including 
the Autobiography, was bequeathed to his grandson, 
William Temple Franklin. 

Already, it will be seen, the Autobiography affords an 
instance of the adage habent et sua fata Ubelli. As a 
manuscript, it has had its strange fortunes. As a book, 
it is to have more. And even of its history as a manu- 
script, we shall find, there is something further to tell 
when the last word seems to have been said. 

ix 



INTRODUCTION 

Seldom has an unpublished book been expected with 
so intense an interest, been waited for with such im- 
patience, as Dr. Franklin's Memoirs of his Life: for so 
the work was generally called. The world wanted it at 
once, and seemed to count the days till it should be 
published. It had to count so many, that a great 
percentage of the enumerators died at their post. It is 
true that young Temple Franklin showed a lively sense 
of the value of the bequest which his grandfather had 
left him, and that within a month after his grandfather's 
death he wrote to M. le Veillard of his intention to bring 
out a complete edition of the Works and Correspondence 
at an early date. Nay more; he came to England a 
few weeks later, expressly to arrange this publication. 
But then a wonderful thing occurred. Though still 
apparently bent on bringing out the edition, and still 
exceedingly anxious lest M. le Veillard should permit his 
MS. copy of the Memoirs to come into the hands or 
under the eyes of any one else, who might purloin or 
pirate the same, and so impair the value of the bequest 
for him — he yet suddenly engages himself for three or 
four months (at a salary, he says) in some mysterious 
business to which all other interests have to be post- 
poned, and by which he earns, in that time, a clear 
£7000, for what services no man knows. 

Now the fact may not mean much, but it is at least 
a curious fact that from the moment when he has con- 
cluded this most remunerative and mysterious engage- 
ment, he begins to display an indifferent zeal in regard 
to the business which had brought him to England, 
the publication of his grandfather's works. To M. le 
Veillard, who is dissatisfied with the reasons for this 
delay and is privileged to say so, he answers more pertly 
than is quite becoming in the grandson of his grandfather 
to such a friend; but tells him (Feb. 28, 1792) that " I 
am now almost entirely employed in bringing forward 
the English edition. ... A few months will, I hope, 
satisfy your impatience and the public curiosity." But 
after that there is silence. M. le Veillard, Gentilhomme 
ordinaire du Roi, died on the revolutionary scaffold in 
1794. By his demise it was doubtless rendered easier 

x 



INTRODUCTION 

for Temple Franklin to neglect, or to go on deferring, 
the duties of piety, than would else have been the case. 
There were those among the living, however, who 
interested themselves in the matter still. In France 
it was confidently asserted, as early as 1791, that the 
Memoirs were to be suppressed because the son and 
grandson of the great philosopher and statesman were 
ashamed of his humble beginnings and his homely style. 
This, of course, was a wildly uninformed venture of the 
imagination. But as time wore on, and still Franklin's 
Works did not appear (that is to say, the authoritative 
and complete, likewise apocalyptic edition thereof — for 
unauthoritative editions of Franklin's Works, in English 
and other languages, there were by the dozen presently), 
another explanation obtained credence, and was openly 
alleged. For example, in the Preface to a handsome 
edition published by Longmans in 1 806, Temple Franklin 
was accused of having carried his grandfather's unpub- 
lished Works and Correspondence to a better market for 
such wares than Paternoster Row, and of having made 
a very good thing of it. He had, in fact, sold his trust 
to the British Government, and suppressed, if not 
destroyed, the whole mass' of Franklin's unpublished 
remains for a great price. In July of that year the 
Edinburgh Review quoted this terrible impeachment in 
full, and supported it. The same charge was repeated 
in other quarters. Only once did Temple Franklin 
publicly take notice of these public attacks, and then he 
chose (in 1807), as the platform on which to defend him- 
self, the pages of an exquisitely obscure English print, 
published in Paris. If feeling against him was high in 
this country, it was higher still in France. There the 
admirers of Franklin were rilled with that peculiar horror 
with which the Latin races regard parricide. That was 
the word used to describe the conduct of this young man ; 
and even when, at the end of time (i.e. in 1817) it was 
announced that the edition was at last about to appear, 
the true Franklinians of France would not believe that 
there was other than a sinister motive for this publica- 
tion, so tardy as it was. It would be found to be a 
carefully mutilated collection, contrived at once so as 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

to misrepresent the great man, to conceal the ignominy 
of his enemies, and to impair the authority and success 
of the more faithful French edition which the reader had 
now the privilege of beholding. " The glory of belittling 
a great man, of abridging Franklin," cries M. Charles 
Malo, " has been reserved for one of his descendants. 
Ought we to inherit from one we have assassinated ? " 
To a generation thus hostile did Temple Franklin deliver 
his work, which was published in two forms (a quarto 
and an octavo form) simultaneously, by Colburne, of 
London. It was far from being a complete edition, but 
the publisher was probably more to blame for that than 
the editor. And whatever he had suppressed — if he 
had suppressed anything — here was the Autobiography, 
given at last, in full, and for the first time in Franklin's 
own English. 

These words need an explanation, for which we must 
turn back a little. I have already referred to the 
anxiety of the legatee in regard to the evil uses that 
might be made of the copy which had been given to 
M. le Veillard in September 1789. He feared the French 
translator only less than the English pirate. The first 
of these fears was prophetic. In 1791 there was pub- 
lished at Paris an anonymous translation of the work, 
as far as to the beginning of the paragraph (p. 84) about 
the founding of the Philadelphia Library. Shortly 
afterwards, two separate translations from this book 
were published in London, and continued to be repub- 
lished in succeeding ages. Some of the copies of what 
professes to be Franklin's Autobiography even now on 
sale are really reprints of one or other of these English 
translations of a French translation of an English 
manuscript. A still more attenuated degree of authen- 
ticity was reached when, in 1798, there appeared at 
Paris an edition of Franklin's works, " traduit de 
l'anglais, avec des notes, par J. Castera." This gentle- 
man had fallen in with one of the English versions 
aforesaid ; and, supposing it to be the original work, he 
translated it anew for the purposes of his edition: in 
which, therefore, we have a French translation of an 
English translation of a French translation of an English 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

manuscript. Here the brain begins to reel, and a sense 
of the ultimate baselessness and unsubstantiality of 
things invades the soul even of the general reader. 
But, courage, mon ami ! Surely there is a place of rest 
in the year 1817 — surely we have in W. Temple Frank- 
lin's edition every word of the Autobiography that 
Benjamin Franklin wrote, and no words but his own. 

So the world really thought for a space of fifty years ; 
and then there was made that discovery which it is the 
business of this Preface to make common knowledge 
henceforth to all the enlightened inhabitants of these 
islands. 

It came about in this manner. One day in the 
summer of 1866, the Hon. John Bigelow, at that time 
American Ambassador to the French Court, happened 
to have to dinner a number of men-of -letters. Amongst 
them was that accomplished litterateur and publicist, M. 
Edouard Laboulaye, who had lately edited a selection 
from Franklin's writings. This introducing the general 
topic, Mr. Bigelow took the opportunity of saying a 
word to those wise men on a matter that had been a 

T 

good deal in his mind for some time. He wanted to 
know what had become of the MS. of Franklin's Auto* 
biography, and whether one could not find it if one 
looked around in that country. He himself believed 
that, unless it had been destroyed, which seemed un- 
likely, the incomparable document was at that moment 
in France, and had been there from the beginning of the 
century at least. Not to give all his reasons for so 
thinking, I will mention two historical facts on which he 
based. First, it had been in France early in the century ; 
for Sir Samuel Romilly had seen it there in 1802, and 
has left a description of it in his Diary. Second, it was 
evidently well taken care of; for it had been seen again 
about fifteen or sixteen years ago by a well-known 
American book-collector: this was in some French town, 
though what town Mr. Bigelow could not then say. 
From these premises the only conclusion seemed to be 
that the manuscript was discoverable upon search being 
made. M. Laboulaye said he would make inquiries, 
and if the thing was in France, he thought he should be 

xiii 



INTRODUCTION 

able to trace it. Six months passed, nothing had come 
of this conversation, and it was time for Mr. Bigelow to 
be getting home. Amongst his farewell calls was one to 
M. Laboulaye; who had still no findings to report, but 
had engaged some members of the Academy in the 
quest and was in good hopes. About a month later (on 
January 19, 1867) Mr. Bigelow, being then in London, 
received from him a letter which began with the joyful 
phrase " Eureka! " and went on to give the address of 
the owner of the manuscript and of some other valuable 
Franklin relics. Mr. Bigelow at once wrote to " my 
cherished friend the late William H. Huntington, in 
Paris," who seems to have been a man worth living to 
know. Him he invested with the powers of an Envoy- 
plenipotentiary, to treat with the present possessors of 
part of the birthright of all Americans. It turned out 
that these possessors were the representatives of the Le 
Veillard family, M. Paul and M. George Senarmont, both 
of Paris. The negotiations were therefore conducted (as 
far as the need for despatch allowed) with the degree of 
consideration due to the feelings of a family so excellent, 
and the surrender was arranged in such a way as to 
reduce to its mildest form the sense of bereavement. 
In a word, the Messieurs de Senarmont had been waiting 
for a purchaser of the heirlooms at 25,000 francs. " A 
large price, it is true," says Mr. Bigelow, " but a price 
that did not seem to me beyond their value to an 
American." To a good American, certainly not; 
though doubtless there are soulless misers and some 
criminals in that country as in others. Untrammelled 
by these baser thoughts, however, and strengthened by 
the possession of Mr. Bigelow's cheque for the amount 
named, Mr. Huntington carried through the whole legal 
and commercial business connected with the purchasing, 
packing and despatching of " The Le Veillard Collection " 
in a single day, that day being the 27th of January 1867: 
nor has any international transaction of equal import- 
ance been so gaily chronicled as he has chronicled this 
one in his letters to Mr. Bigelow. May he so smile for 
ever, though no longer in Paris; and here below let him 
have honourable mention wherever this story is told. 

xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

The collection consisted of three items: (i) a small 
batch of Letters; (2) a new Portrait of Franklin; (3) an 
autograph MS. of the Autobiography. Regarding the 
Letters I need only say that a few were from Franklin 
and the rest from members of his family. All were 
addressed to M. le Veillard, and they afford information, 
which we should not have found elsewhere, regarding 
Franklin's last attempts to continue the Memoirs, and 
also regarding the peculiar action, or inaction, of W. 
Temple Franklin in the matter of bringing out the 
Works. Of the Portrait it is the less necessary to give 
an account, because by the great kindness of Mr. Bigelow 
a reproduction of it appears as the frontispiece to this 
volume. The original is a pastel of undoubted authen- 
ticity, done in 1783 by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, an 
Academician and a portraitist of very high repute in 
his generation. The picture was a parting gift from 
Franklin to his friend and neighbour M. le Veillard, 
who was a gentleman-in-ordinary to the King, and the 
Mayor of Passy. A portrait of Franklin was named in 
the lists of Duplessis* works, but it was lost to the 
world till Mr. Bigelow brought it back to light. 

Of the Manuscript it is necessary to speak more fully. 
There are those who have builded wiser than they knew, 
and others who have found better things than they 
sought. To the latter category of the fortunate belongs 
Mr. Bigelow. He had wished to recover the MS. of 
Franklin's Autobiography, merely out of regard to the 
sentimental interest attaching to a document having 
such rich associations — biographical, historical, literary 
— for an American, and not at all because he supposed 
that the MS. would reveal anything concerning the 
history of the book or add a page to those " Memoirs of 
Fran k l i n, written by Himself," which had so long been 
a familiar English classic. Careful inspection showed, 
however, that in both these respects the newly found 
MS. was a document revelateur. 

For here there was, in the first place, a considerable 
positive addition. The Autobiography, as published in 
1817, breaks off with the arrival of Franklin in London 
in 1757; whereas here the story was continued to the 

xv 



INTRODUCTION 

conclusion, in 1762, of that Pennsylvanian business 
which had brought him to this country. The matter of 
this continuation was, as a fact, not quite new, though 
the actual words were now first verified. A French 
translation published in 1828 had contained this final 
portion, and the editor explained that it had been com- 
municated to him by the Le Veillard family. How the 
Le Veillard family came to be able to communicate 
anything of the sort was much of a mystery; but the 
historical certification given to Mr. Bigelow along with 
his purchases by the Messieurs de Senarmont now ex- 
plained all. The MS. in their possession was not the 
copy sent to M. le Veillard by Franklin in September 
1789, but Franklin's own original copy in his own hand- 
writing, with all his own corrections, erasures, and 
marginal comments. These additaments — the use of a 
Lamb word is privileged here, for more reasons than its 
correctness — these additaments, which increased the 
interest of the document for the true devotee so greatly, 
had been in rather an odd way the cause of its preserva- 
tion. When Temple Franklin at last took steps to 
publish his grandfather's Works, he wished to have a 
fair copy of the Memoirs " for the printers." And being 
one of these editors — so exceptional, and extraordinary, 
and fortunate! — who do not fatigue themselves, he 
coolly asked the Le Veillard family to let him have the 
use of theirs. At this they very naturally exclaimed, 
and reminded him of the interest and preciousness to 
them of this souvenir of their illustrious friend, which 
they were asked to give up. " Oh, as to that," said the 
very Anglo-Saxon young man, " you can have my copy 
in exchange ; which is not a ' copy ' at all, but the 
original autograph, and so, you see, much more of a 
souvenir than your own." The conversation has not 
been officially reported, any more than the great speeches 
in Thucydides, but no doubt these were the very words. 
In this way, at any rate, the exchange was made. But 
Mr. Temple Franklin, who did not fatigue himself, had 
not troubled to compare the two manuscripts, and so 
had failed to remark that the one which he was giving 
away contained an important addition (besides the 

xvi 



INTRODUCTION 

additaments aforesaid) not to be found in the one which 
he was getting in return. And this difference between 
the two manuscripts is just what, with our present know- 
ledge from other sources, we should be able to affirm 
without having seen either of them. For we know that 
when Franklin caused a copy to be sent to Le Veillard in 
September 1 789, he had then brought the story down to 
June 1757, and considered that he had now done all he 
would ever be able to do to it. But we also know that 
in November he had another rally of courage or confi- 
dence, and was trying bravely to go on again, and had 
even some momentary hopes of completing his task yet. 
Whatever additions resulted from this final effort, they 
would appear in the autograph copy which he kept beside 
him, and would be absent from both of those fair copies 
which were sent to Europe in September. Yet it was 
from one of these more imperfect copies that Temple 
Franklin, in forgetfulness rather than indifference, was 
electing to print. The great lapse of time during which 
he had kept back the publication would account for this 
forgetfulness, and thus the pieties neglected invoked a 
nemesis of a sort ; for in the end he was not the possessor 
of the Complete Autobiography after all, jealously as he 
had wished to guard that right. 

But a detailed comparison of the work as it exists in 
manuscript and the book as it was given to the world 
by Temple Franklin, revealed a more important differ- 
ence between the two. It revealed a pervading lack of 
identity. In the act of publication, the text had been 
tampered with throughout. Not only Franklin's spell- 
ing and punctuation had been departed from, but a 
running commentary of silent alterations, corrections, 
and suppressions of Franklin's own words had been 
inflicted on every page of the book. Mr. Bigelow gives 
the number of these changes as 1200 in all. They 
appear to have been in no case dictated by malevolence 
or by any motive more considerable than the sempi- 
ternal impertinence of youth and modernity. The 
young man was of his own generation, and not of his 
grandfather's; he was of a generation which abounded 
in complete letter-writers, and for which the word 

xvii 



INTRODUCTION 

" elegant " had an unction that has somehow evaporated 
for us. The manner of speech which was good enough 
for the grandfather seemed to the grandson, so differently 
nurtured, to be a trifle untrimmed, homely, sometimes 
perhaps coarse. Where Franklin can talk of some one 
" having got a naughty girl with child," the young 
gentleman of a more modest age can but speak of 
" having had an intrigue with a young woman of bad 
character." Where Benjamin talks of " footing it to 
London," the politer Temple substitutes " walking." 
A great many are of this character; but a vast number 
are even more gratuitous. . They consist in substituting 
for the idiomatic, racy, vernacular diction of Franklin — 
Franklin, who is an Augustan, but has an affinity with 
stronger writers than the Augustans — something that 
was in more complete accord with the recognised cor- 
rectnesses of polite letterpress in the early Nineteenth 
Century. I have not room for a detailed citation of 
passages in parallel columns, but what I have said will 
put the Reader in a way to understand how greatly we 
are indebted to Mr. Bigelow for his kindness in permitting 
us to use for this edition the True Text of the Autobio- 
graphy, as published by him in 1868 and subsequently. 1 
The composition of the book has been done from a copy 
of his 3rd Edition, published by Messrs. J. B. Lippincott 
Company, to whom also acknowledgments and thanks 
are due. 

1 Be it added that these improving touches are the only acts of 
parricide of which the maligned and ill-used Temple Franklin can 
be convicted. The accusation of having made his grandfather's 
literary remains the subject of a nefarious deal with the British 
Government has never been made good. The only piece of posi- 
tive evidence in favour of the idea is this: that Jefferson speaks 
of having read a certain passage in the MS. of Franklin's account 
of the Secret Negotiations carried on during the winter 1774-5; 
which passage does not appear in the printed version. But I do 
not think this at all conclusive, in the face of many facts pointing 
the other way. The delay in bringing out the Edition can be 
explained on grounds more credible and creditable than those 
alleged by enemies and enthusiasts. The young man's father was 
alive, an exiled loyalist, living in England, subsisting on a pension 
from the King. Here was an influence; here also consideration 
of prudence, even of seemliness. And as a fact it was immediately 
after his father's death, and not till then, that Temple Franklin 
set about, in earnest, the business which had brought him to 
Europe nearly thirty years earlier. He died soon afterwards. 

xviii 



INTRODUCTION 

A word, finally, regarding my own contribution to this 
volume. I have sought to make it in some degree com- 
plementary to the Autobiography ; but what I mean by 
complementary needs to be explained. If there are few 
more charming or veracious books in the world than 
Franklin's account of his own life, there is perhaps 
no other book of its kind so insufficient — no other 
which gives, with all its appearance of unity and 
coherence, so fragmentary an impression of the whole 
man as he really was. This is not due merely to the 
fact that the book was unfinished, but far more to the 
fact that the man — the whole man — was so wonderful 
both from the point of view of character and of career. 
The Autobiography tells us much about a certain busy 
and notable and well-doing citizen of Philadelphia; and 
perhaps even of that civic character the dimensions are 
understated, by an effect of modesty in the chronicler 
of his doings. But it tells us nothing of a great and 
famous man of science ; it tells us nothing of a reverend 
philosopher, of a man of massive wisdom, vast toleration, 
endless patience, inexhaustible courage and endurance, 
and matchless in security and counsel; nor anything of 
a man of so rare and full social qualities that there was 
no such companion as he, and the record of his friend- 
ships would almost fill a book. And as for a certain 
Great and Illustrious Franklin — the most famous 
patriot, the wisest statesman, the most successful 
diplomatist of his age, a man whose presence in the 
world filled the mind of his generation — it does not 
afford us a hint that such an one ever existed. To make 
up for all these biographical and historical deficiencies 
of a confessed literary classic would be impossible in 
less than two volumes. Having to choose and to 
forego, I have chosen to treat of that aspect and period 
of Franklin's life which stands in most vivid contrast 
with the picture presented to us in the pages of the 
Autobiography. My subject is the historical Franklin, 
the Franklin with whose name " all Europe rang from 
side to side." Of necessity, the result is a composition 
fully more compact of history than of biography, for 
that was the atmosphere in which he lived. The labour 

xix 



INTRODUCTION 

has been to leave out, and yet preserve continuity ; also 
so to write that the uninformed in these matters should 
be able to read with some comprehension and interest, 
and that those who know might not find the whole 
thing superfluous. 

As to sympathy, that will depend on whether they 
agree with the Gods or Cato. For on this occasion 1 
agree with the Gods. 

W. M. 

London, October 25, 1904. 



XSi 



FRANKLIN'S DRAFT SCHEME OF THE 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

\Copie d*un Projet tres Curieux de Benjamin Franklin — 
I*« Fsquisse de ses Memoir es. Les additions a Vencre 
rouge sont de la main de Franklin .] 1 

My writing. Mrs Dogood's letters. Differences arise 
between my Brother and me (his temper and mine) ; their 
cause in general. His Newspaper. The Prosecution he 
suffered. My Examination. Vote of Assembly. His 
manner of evading it. Whereby I became free. My 
attempt to get employ with other Printers. He prevents 
me. Our frequent pleadings before our Father. The 
final Breach. My Inducements to quit Boston. Manner 
of coming to a Resolution. My leaving him and going to 
New York (return to eating flesh) ; thence to Penn- 
sylvania. The journey, and its events on the Bay, at 
Amboy. The road. Meet with Dr Brown. His char- 
acter. His great work. At Burlington. The Good 
Woman. On the River. My Arrival at Philadelphia. 
First Meal and first Sleep. Money left. Employment. 
Lodging. First acquaintance with my afterward Wife. 
With J. Ralph. With Keimer. Their characters. 
Osborne. Watson. The Governor takes notice of me. 
The Occasion and Manner. His character. Offers 
to set me up. My return to Boston. Voyage and 
accidents. Reception. My Father dislikes the proposal. 
I return to New York and Philadelphia. Governor 
Burnet. J. Collins. The Money for Vernon. The 
Governor's Deceit. Collins not finding employment goes 
to Barbados much in my Debt. Ralph and I go to 

1 Thi» memorandum, probably in the handwriting of M. le 
Veillard, immediately precedes the Outline in the MS. — B. 

A I 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

England. Disappointment of Governor's Lettcn. Colonel 
French his Friend. Cornwallis's Letters. Cabbin. 
Denham. Hamilton. Arrival in England. Get em- 
ployment. Ralph not. He is an expense to me. Ad- 
ventures in England. Write a Pamphlet and print ioo. 
Schemes. Lyons. Dr Pemberton. My diligence, and 
yet poor through Ralph. My Landlady. Her character. 
Wygate. Wilkes. Cibber. Plays. Books I borrowed. 
Preachers I heard. Redmayne. At Watts's. Temper- 
ance. Ghost. Conduct and Influence among the Men. 
Persuaded by Mr Denham to return with him to Phila- 
delphia and be his clerk. Our voyage and arrival. My 
resolutions in Writing. My Sickness. His Death. 
Found D. R. married. Go to work again with Keimer. 
Terms. His ill-usage of me. My Resentment. Saying 
of Decow. My Friends at Burlington. Agreement with 
H. Meredith to set up in Partnership. Do so. Success 
with the Assembly- Hamilton's Friendship. Sewell's 
History. Gazette. Paper money. Webb. Writing 
Busy Body. Breintnal. Godfrey. His character. 
Suit against us. Offer of my Friends, Coleman and 
Grace. Continue the Business, and M. goes to Carolina. 
Pamphlet on Paper Money. Gazette from Keimer. 
Junto credit ; its plan. Marry. Library erected. Manner 
of conducting the project. Its plan and utility. Children. 
Almanac. The use I made of it. Great industry. Con- 
stant study. Father's Remark and Advice upon Diligence. 
Carolina Partnership. Learn French and German. 
Journey to Boston after ten years. Affection of my 
Brother. His Death, and leaving me his Son. Art of 
Virtue. Occasion. City Watch amended. Post-office. 
Spotswood. Bradford's Behaviour. Clerk of Assembly. 
Lose one of my Sons. Project of subordinate Juntos. 
Write occasionally in the papers. Success in Business. 
Fire companies. Engines. Go again to Boston in 1743. 
See Dr Spence. Whitefield. My connection with him. 
His generosity to me. My returns. Church Differences. 
My part in them. Propose a College. Not then pro- 
secuted. Propose and establish a Philosophical Society. 
War. Electricity. My first knowledge of it. Partner- 
ship with D. Hall, etc. Dispute in Assembly upon 

2 



HIS DRAFT SCHEME 

Defence. Project for it. Plain Truth. Its success. 
Ten thousand Men raised and disciplined. Lotteries, 
Battery built. New Castle. My influence in the Council. 
Colors, Devices, and Mottos. Ladies' Military Watch. 
Quakers chosen of the Common Council. Put in the 
commission of the peace. Logan fond of me. His 
Library. Appointed Postmaster- General. Chosen 
Assemblyman. Commissioner to treat with Indians at 
Carlisle and at Easton. Project and establish Academy. 
Pamphlet on it. Journey to Boston. At Albany. Plan 
of union of the colonies. Copy of it. Remarks upon it. 
It fails, and how. Journey to Boston in 1754. Disputes 
about it in our Assembly. My part in them. New 
Governor. Disputes with him. His character and 
sayings to me. Chosen Alderman. Project of Hospital. 
My share in it. Its success. Boxes. Made a Com- 
missioner of the Treasury. My commission to defend the 
frontier counties. Raise Men and build Forts. Militia 
Law of my drawing. Made Colonel. Parade of my 
Officers. Offence to Proprietor. Assistance to Boston 
Ambassadors. Journey with Shirley, etc. Meet with 
Braddock. Assistance to him. To the Officers of his 
Army. Furnish him with Forage. His concessions to 
me and character of me. Success of my Electrical 
Experiments. Medal sent me. Present Royal Society, 
and Speech of President. Denny's Arrival and Courtship 
to me. His character. My service to the Army in the 
affair of Quarters. Disputes about the Proprietor's Taxes 
continued. Project for paving the City. I am sent to 
England. Negotiation there. Canada delenda est. My 
Pamphlet. Its reception and effect. Projects drawn 
from me concerning the Conquest. Acquaintance made 
and their services to me — Mrs S. M. Small, Sir John P., 
Mr Wood, Sargent Strahan, and others. Their characters. 
Doctorate from Edinburgh, St Andrew's. Doctorate 
from Oxford. Journey to Scotland. Lord Leicester. 
Mr Prat. De Grey. Jackson. State of Affairs in 
England. Delays. Eventful Journey into Holland and 
Flanders. Agency from Maryland. Son's appointment. 
My Return. Allowance and thanks. Journey to Boston. 
John Penn, Governor. My conduct toward him. The 

3 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Paxton Murders. My Pamphlet. Rioters march to 
Philadelphia. Governor retires to my House. My 
conduct. Sent out to the Insurgents. Turn them back. 
Little thanks. Disputes revived. Resolutions against 
continuing under Proprietary Government. Another 
Pamphlet. Cool thoughts. Sent again to England with 
Petition. Negotiation there. Lord H. His character. 
Agencies from New Jersey, Georgia, Massachusetts. 
Journey into Germany, 1766. Civilities received there. 
Gottingen Observations. Ditto into France in 1767. 
Ditto in 1769. Entertainment there at the Academy. 
Introduced to the King and the Mesdames, Mad. Victoria 
and Mrs Lamagnon. Due de Chaulnes, M. Beaumont, 
Le Roy, D'Alibard, Nollet. See Journals. Holland. 
Reprint my papers and add many. Books presented to me 
from many authors. My Book translated into French. 
Lightning Kite. Various Discoveries. My manner of 
prosecuting that Study. King of Denmark invites me to 
dinner. Recollect my Father's Proverb. Stamp Act. 
My opposition to it. Recommendation of J. Hughes. 
Amendment of it. Examination in Parliament. Repu- 
tation it gave me. Caressed by Ministry. Charles 
Townsend's Act. Opposition to it. Stoves and chimney- 
plates. Armonica. Acquaintance with Ambassadors. 
Russian Intimation. Writing in newspapers. Glasses 
from Germany. Grant of Land in Nova Scotia. Sick- 
nesses. Letters to America returned hither. The con- 
sequences. Insurance Office. My character. Costs me 
nothing to be civil to inferiors ; a good deal to be sub- 
missive to superiors, etc., etc. Farce of Perpetual Motion. 
Writing for Jersey Assembly. Hutchinson's Letters. 
Temple. Suit in Chancery. Abuse before the Privy 
Council, Lord Hillsborough's character and conduct. 
Lord Dartmouth. Negotiation to prevent the War. 
Return to America. Bishop of St Asaph. Congress. 
Assembly. Committee of Safety. Chevaux-de-frise. 
Sent to Boston, to the Camp. To Canada, to Lord 
Howe. To France. Treaty, etc. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

TwYFORD, at the Bishop of St Asaph's, 1 177X. 

Dear Son : I have ever had pleasure in obtaining 
any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may 
remember the inquiries I made among the remains of 
my relations when you were with me in England, 
and the journey I undertook for that purpose. 
Imagining it may be equally agreeable to 2 you to 
know the circumstances of my life, many of which 
you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the 
enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my 
present country retirement, I sit down to write them 
for you. To which I have besides some other 
inducements. Having emerged from the poverty 
and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a 
state of affluence and some degree of reputation in 
the world, and having gone so far through life with 
a considerable share of felicity, the conducing 
means I made use of, which with the blessing of 
God so well succeeded, my posterity may like 
to know, as they may find some of them suitable 
to their own situations, and therefore fit to be 
imitated. 

That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced 
me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my 
choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of 
the same life from its beginning, only asking the 

1 The country-seat of Bishop Shipley, the good bishop, as Dr 
Franklin used to style him. — B. 

a After the words "agreeable to" the words " some of" were 
interlined and afterward effaced. — B. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

advantages authors have in a second edition to cor- 
rect some faults of the first. So I might, besides 
correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents 
and events of it for others more favourable. But 
though this were denied, I should still accept the 
offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, 
the next thing most like living one's life over again 
seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make 
that recollection as durable as possible by putting it 
down in writing. 

Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so 
natural in old men, to be talking of themselves and 
their own past actions ; and I shall indulge it with- 
out being tiresome to others, who, through respect to 
age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me 
a hearing, since this may be read or not as any one 
pleases. And, lastly (I may as well confess it, 
since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), 
perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. 
Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory 
words, "Without vanity I may say" etc., but some 
vain thing immediately followed. Most people dis- 
like vanity in others, whatever share they have of 
it themselves ; but I give it fair quarter wherever I 
meet with it, being persuaded that it is often pro- 
ductive of good to the possessor, and to others that 
are within his sphere of action ; and therefore, in 
many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a 
man were to thank God for his vanity among the 
other comforts of life. 

And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with 
all humility to acknowledge that I owe the men- 
tioned happiness of my past life to His kind provi- 
dence, which lead me to the means I used and gave 
them success. My belief of this induces me to hope> 
though I must not presume, that the same goodness 
will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that 
happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, 

6 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which I may experience as others have done ; the 
complexion of my future fortune being known to Him 
only in whose power it is to bless to us even our 
afflictions. 

The notes one of my uncles (who had the same 
kind of curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once 
put into my hands, furnished me with several par- 
ticulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes 
I learned that the family had lived in the same vil- 
lage, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for three hundred 
years, and how much longer he knew not (perhaps 
from the time when the name of Franklin, that be- 
fore was the name of an order of people, was assumed 
by them as a surname when others took surnames 
all over the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty 
acres, aided by the smith's business, which had con- 
tinued in the family till his time, the eldest son 
being always bred to that business ; a custom which 
he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. 
When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an 
account of their births, marriages and burials from 
the year 1555 only? there being no registers kept in 
that parish at any time preceding. By that register 
I perceived that I was the youngest son of the 
youngest son for five generations back. My grand- 
father Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at 
Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, 
when he went to live with his son John, a dyer at 
Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father 
served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather 
died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1 758. 
His eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, 
and left it with the land to his only child, a daughter, 
who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Welling- 
borough, sold it to Mr Isted, now lord of the manor 
there. My grandfather had four sons that grew 
up, viz. : Thomas, John, Benjamin and Josiah. I 
will give you what account I can of them, at this 

7 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

distance from my papers, and if these are not lost 
in my absence, you will among them find many 
more particulars. 

Thomas was bred a smith under his father ; but, 
being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all 
my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the 
principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified him- 
self for the business of scrivener ; became a con- 
siderable man in the county ; was a chief mover of 
all public-spirited undertakings for the county or 
town of Northampton, and his own village, of which 
many instances were related of him ; and much 
taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord 
Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style, 
just four years to a day before I was born. The 
account we received of his life and character from 
some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck you 
as something extraordinary, from its similarity to 
what you knew of mine. " Had he died on the 
same day," you said, " one might have supposed a 
transmigration." 

John was bred a dyer, I believe of woolens. 
Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an appren- 
ticeship at London. He was an ingenious man. I 
remember him well, for when I was a boy he came 
over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house 
with us some years. He lived to a great age. His 
grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. 
He left behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of 
his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces 
addressed to his friends and relations, of which the 
following, sent to me, is a specimen. He had 
formed a short-hand of his own, which he taught 
me, but, never practising it, I have now forgot it. 
I was named after this uncle, there being a parti- 
cular affection between him and my father. He was 
very pious, a great attender of sermons of the best 
preachers, which he took down in his short-hand, 

8 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and had with him many volumes of them. He was 
also much of a politician ; too much, perhaps, for 
his station. There fell lately into my hands, in 
London, a collection he had made of all the prin- 
cipal pamphlets relating to public affairs, from 1 64 1 
to 17 17; many of the volumes are wanting as 
appears by the numbering, but there still remain 
eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto 
and in octavo. A dealer in old books met with 
them, and knowing me by my sometimes buying of 
him, he brought them to me. It seems my uncle 
must have left them here when he went to America, 
which was above fifty years since. There are many 
of his notes in the margins. 

This obscure family of ours was early in the Re- 
formation, and continued Protestants through the 
reign of Queen Mary, when they were sometimes 
in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against 
popery. They had got an English Bible, and to 
conceal and secure it, it was fastened open with 
tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. 
"When my great-great-grandfather read it to his 
family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, 
turning over the leaves then under the tapes. One 
of the children stood at the door to give notice if he 
saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the 
spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned 
down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained 
concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had 
from my uncle Benjamin. The family continued 
all of the Church of England till about the end of 
Charles the Second's reign, when some of the 
ministers that had been outed for non-conformity 
holding conventicles in Northamptonshire, Benjamin 
and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all 
their lives : the rest of the family remained with the 
Episcopal Church. 

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his 

9 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

wife with three children into New England, about 
1682. The conventicles having been forbidden by 
law, and frequently disturbed, induced some con- 
siderable men of his acquaintance to remove to that 
country, and he was prevailed with to accompany 
them thither, where they expected to enjoy their 
mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife 
he had four children more born there, and by a 
second wife ten more, in all seventeen ; of which I 
remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, 
who all grew up to be men and women, and married ; 
I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but 
two, and was born in Boston, New England. My 
mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter 
of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New 
England, of whom honorable mention is made by 
Cotton Mather, in his church history of that country, 
entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, as "a godly, 
learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. 
I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional 
pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I 
saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, 
in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and 
addressed to those then concerned in the govern- 
ment there. It was in favor of liberty of con- 
science, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and 
other sectaries that had been under persecution, 
ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that 
had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so 
many judgments of God to punish so heinous an 
offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable 
laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a 
good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. 
The six concluding lines I remember, though I 
have forgotten the two first of the stanza ; but the 
purport of them was, that his censures proceeded 
from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known 
to be the author. 

IO 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

*« Because to be a libeller (says he) 

I hate it with my heart ; 
From Sherburne town, where now I dwell 

My name I do put here ; 
Without offense your real friend, 

It is Peter Folgier." 

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to 
different trades. I was put to the grammar-school 
at eight years of age, my father intending to devote 
me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the 
Church. My early readiness in learning to read 
(which must have been very early, as I do not 
remember when I could not read), and the opinion 
of all his friends, that I should certainly make a good 
scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My 
uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed 
to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I 
suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn 
his character. I continued, however, at the grammar- 
school not quite one year, though in that time I 
had risen gradually from the middle of the class of 
that year to be the head of it, and farther was 
removed into the next class above it, in order to go 
with that into the third at the end of the year. But 
my father, in the meantime, from a view of the 
expense of a college education, which having so 
large a family he could not well afford, and the mean 
living many so educated weie afterwards able to 
obtain — reasons that he gave to his friends in my 
hearing — altered his first intention, took me from 
the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for 
writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, 
Mr George Brownell, very successful in his pro- 
fession generally, and that by mild, encouraging 
methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty 
soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no 
progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home 
to assist my father in his business, which was that of 
a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler ; a business he 

II 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in 
New England, and on finding his dying trade would 
not maintain his family, being in little request. 
Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the 
candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast 
candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc. 

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination 
for the sea, but my father declared against it ; how- 
ever, living near the water, I was much in and 
about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage 
boats ; and when in a boat or canoe with other 
boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially 
in any case of difficulty ; and upon other occasions I 
was generally a leader among the boys, and some- 
times led them into scrapes, of which I will mention 
one instance, as it shows an early projecting public 
spirit, tho' not then justly conducted. 

There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the 
mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we 
used to stand to fish for minnows. By much tramp- 
ling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My pro- 
posal was to build a wharfF there fit for us to stand 
upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of 
stones, which were intended for a new house near 
the marsh, and which would very well suit our 
purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the 
workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my 
play-fellows, and working with them diligently like 
so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, 
we brought them all away and built our little 
wharfF. The next morning the workmen were sur- 
prised at missing the stones, which were found in 
our wharfF. Inquiry was made after the removers ; 
we were discovered and complained of; several of 
us were corrected by our fathers ; and, though I 
pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced 
me that nothing was useful which was not honest. 

I think you may like to know something of his 

12 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

person and character. He had an excellent consti- 
tution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, 
and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw 
prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear 
pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes 
on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did 
in an evening after the business of the day was over, 
it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a 
mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very 
handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools ; but his 
great excellence lay in a sound understanding and 
solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private 
and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was 
never employed, the numerous family he had to 
educate and the straitness of his circumstances keep- 
ing him close to his trade ; but I remember well his 
being frequently visited by leading people, who 
consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town 
or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good 
deal of respect for his judgment and advice : he was 
also much consulted by private persons about their 
affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently 
chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. 
At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, 
some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, 
and always took care to start some ingenious or 
useful topic for discourse, which might tend to 
improve the minds of his children. By this means 
he turned our attention to what was good, just, and 
prudent in the conduct of life ; and little or no 
notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals 
on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in 
or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or 
inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so 
that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to 
those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of 
food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, 
that to this day*if I am asked I can scarce tell a few 

13 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has 
been a convenience to me in travelling, where my 
companions have been sometimes very unhappy for 
want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, 
because better instructed, tastes and appetites. 

My mother had likewise an excellent constitution : 
she suckled all her ten children. I never knew 
either my father or mother to have any sickness but 
that of which they dy'd, he at 89, and she at 85 
years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, 
where I some years since placed a marble over their 
grave, with this inscription : 

Josiah Franklin, 

and 

Abiah his wife, 

lie here interred. 

They lived lovingly together in wedlock 

fifty-five years. 

Without an estate, or any gainful employment, 

By constant labor and industry, 

with God's blessing, 

They maintained a large family 

comfortably, 

and brought up thirteen children 

and seven grandchildren 

reputably. 

From this instance, reader, 

Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, 

And distrust not Providence. 

He was a pious and prudent man ; 

She, a discreet and virtuous woman 

Their youngest son, 

In filial regard to their memory, 

Places this stone. 

J. F. born 1655, died 1744, iEtat 89. 

A. F. born 1667, died 1752, 85. 

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to 
be grown old. I us'd to write more methodically. 
But one does not dress for private company as for a 
publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence. 

To return : I continued thus employed in my 
father's business for two years, that is, till I was 

T4 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

twelve years old ; and my brother John, who was 
bred to that business, having left my father, married, 
and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was 
all appearance that I was destined to supply his 
place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dis- 
like to the trade continuing, my father was under 
apprehensions that if he did not find one for me 
more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, 
as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. 
He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, 
and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., 
at their work, that he might observe my inclination, 
and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on 
land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to 
see good workmen handle their tools ; and it has 
been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as 
to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when 
a workman could not readily be got, and to con- 
struct little machines for my experiments, while the 
intention of making the experiment was fresh and 
warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon 
the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son 
Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, 
being about that time established in Boston, I was 
sent to be with him some time on liking. But his 
expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, 
I was taken home again. 

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the 
little money that came into my hands was ever laid 
out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, 
my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in 
separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to 
enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections \ 
they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 
or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted 
chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which 
I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time 
when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more 

15 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was 
now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's 
Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I 
still think that time spent to great advantage. There 
was also a book of De Foe's, called an Essay on 
Projects, and another of Dr Mather's, called Essays 
to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of 
think : ng that had an influence on some of the 
principal future events of my life. 

This bookish inclination at length determined my 
father to make me a printer, though he had already 
one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my 
brother James returned from England with a press 
and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked 
it much better than that of my father, but still had a 
hankering for the sea. To prevent the appre- 
hended effect of such an inclination, my father was 
impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood 
out some time, but at last was persuaded, and 
signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve 
years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was 
twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed 
journeyman's wages during the last year. In a 
little time I made great proficiency in the business, 
and became a useful hand to my brother. I now 
had access to better books. An acquaintance with 
the apprentices of booksellers enabled me some- 
times to borrow a small one, which I was careful to 
return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room read- 
ing the greatest part of the night, when the book was 
borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in 
the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. 

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr 
Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of 
books, and who frequented our printing-house, took 
notice of me, invited me to his library, and very 
kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I 
now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little 

16 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pieces ; my brother, thinking it might turn to 
account, encouraged me, and put me on composing 
occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse 
Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning 
of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters : the 
other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach 
(or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched 
stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style ; and when 
they were printed he sent me about the town to sell 
them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being 
recent, having made a great noise. This flattered 
my vanity; but my father discouraged me by 
ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse- 
makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being 
a poet, most probably a very bad one ; but as prose 
writing has been of great use to me in the course of 
my life, and was a principal means of my advance- 
ment, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I 
acquired what little ability I have in that way, 

There was another bookish lad in the town, John 
Collins by name, with whom I was intimately 
acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond 
we were of argument, and very desirous of con- 
futing one another, which disputatious turn, by the 
way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making 
people often extremely disagreeable in company by 
the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into 
practice ; and thence, besides souring and spoiling 
the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, per- 
haps enmities where you may have occasion for 
friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's 
books of dispute about religion. Persons of good 
sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, 
except lawyers, university men, and men of all 
sorts that have been bred at Edinborough. 

A question was once, somehow or other, started 
between Collins and me, of the propriety of edu- 
cating the female sex in learning, and their abilities 

B 17 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, 
and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took 
the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. 
He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty 
of words ; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me 
down more by his fluency than by the strength of 
his reasons. As we parted without settling the 
point, and were not to see one another again for 
some time, I sat down to put my arguments in 
writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He 
answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of 
a side had passed, when my father happened to find 
my papers and read them. Without entering into 
the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about 
the manner of my writing ; observed that, though I 
had the advantage of my antagonist in correct 
spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing- 
house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in 
method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced 
me by several instances. I saw the justice of his 
remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the 
manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at 
improvement. 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the 
Spectator. It was the third. I had never before 
seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and 
over, and was much delighted with it. I thought 
the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to 
imitate it. With this view I took some of the 
papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in 
each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, 
without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the 
papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at 
length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, 
in any suitable words that should come to hand. 
Then I compared my Spectator with the original, 
discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. 
But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness 

18 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

in recollecting and using them, which I thought I 
should have acquired before that time if I had gone 
on making verses ; since the continual occasion for 
words of the same import, but of different length, 
to suit the measure, or of different sound for the 
rhyme, would have laid me under a constant neces- 
sity of searching for variety, and also have tended 
to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master 
of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned 
them into verse ; and, after a time, when I had pretty 
well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. 
I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints 
into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored 
to reduce them into the best order, before I began 
to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. 
This was to teach me method in the arrangement of 
thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with 
the original, I discovered many faults and amended 
them j but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying 
that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been 
lucky enough to improve the method or the language, 
and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in 
time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which 
I was extreamly ambitious. My time for these ex- 
ercises and for reading was at night, after work or 
before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when 
I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading 
as much as I could the common attendance on public 
worship which my father used to exact on me when 
I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought 
a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford 
time to practise it. 

When about 1 6 years of age I happened to meet 
with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending 
a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My 
brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, 
but boarded himself and his apprentices in another 
family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an 

19 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my 
singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's 
manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as 
boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and 
a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that 
if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid 
for my board, I would board myself. He instantly 
agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save 
half what he paid me. This was an additional fund 
for buying books. But I had another advantage in 
it. My brother and the rest going from the print- 
ing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, 
and, despatching presently my light repast, which 
often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, 
a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, 
and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till 
their return for study, in which I made the greater 
progress, from that greater clearness of head and 
quicker apprehension which usually attend temper- 
ance in eating and drinking. 

And now it was that, being on some occasion 
made asham'd of my ignorance in figures, which I 
had twice failed in learning when at school, I took 
Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through 
the whole by myself with great ease. I also read 
Seller's and Shermy's books of Navigation, and 
became acquainted with the little geometry they 
contain ; but never proceeded far in that science. 
And I read about this time Locke on Human Under- 
standing, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs du Port 
Royal. 

While I was intent on improving my language, I 
met with an English grammar (I think it was Green- 
wood's), at the end of which there were two little 
sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter 
finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic 
method ; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's 
Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are 

20 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

many instances of the same method. I was charm'd 
with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction 
and positive argumentation, and put on the humble 
inquirer and doubter. And being then, from read- 
ing Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter 
in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this 
method safest for myself and very embarassing to 
those against whom I used it ; therefore I took a 
delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very 
artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior 
knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of 
which they did not foresee, entangling them in 
difficulties out of which they could not extricate 
themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither 
myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd 
this method some few years, but gradually left it, 
retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms 
of modest diffidence ; never using, when I advanced 
anything that may possibly be disputed, the words 
certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air 
of positiveness to an opinion ; but rather say, I con- 
ceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so ; it appears 
to me, or / should think it so or so, for such and such 
reasons ; or / imagine it to be so ; or it is so, if I am not 
mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great 
advantage to me when I have had occasion to in- 
culcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures 
that I have been from time to time engag'd in pro- 
moting ; and, as the chief ends of conversation are 
to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I 
wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen 
their power of doing good by a positive, assuming 
manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create 
opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes 
for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or 
receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would 
inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing 
your sentiments may provoke contradiction and pre- 

21 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

vent a candid attention. If you wish information 
and improvement from the knowledge of others, and 
yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd 
in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who 
do not love disputation, will probably leave you un- 
disturbed in the possession of your error. And by 
such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend 
yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade 
those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, 
judiciously : 

** Men should bt taught as if you taught them not, 
And things unknown propot'd as things forgot ; " 

farther recommending to us 

"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence. " 

And he might have coupled with this line that 
which he has coupled with another, I think, less 
properly, 

" For want of modesty is want of sense." 

If you ask, Why less properly ? I must repeat the 
lines, 

" Immodest words admit of no defense, 
For want of modesty is want of sense." 

Now, is not ivant of sense (where a man is so un- 
fortunate as to want it) some apology for his ivant 
of modesty ? and would not the lines stand more 
justly thus ? 

M Immodest words admit but this defense, 
That want of modesty is want of sense." 

This, however, I should submit to better judgments. 
My brother had, in 1 720 or 1 72 1, begun to print 
a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in 
America, and was called the New England Courant. 
The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. 

22 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I remember his being dissuaded by some of his 
friends from the undertaking, as not likely to suc- 
ceed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, 
enough for America. At this time (1771) there 
are not less than five-and-twenty. He went on, 
however, with the undertaking, and after having 
worked in composing the types and printing off the 
sheets, I was employed to carry the papers thro* the 
streets to the customers. 

He had some ingenious men among his friends, 
who amus'd themselves by writing little pieces for 
this paper, which gain'd it credit and made it more 
in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. 
Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of 
the approbation their papers were received with, I 
was excited to try my hand among them ; but, being 
still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would 
object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he 
knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, 
and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at night 
under the door of the printing-house. It was found 
in the morning, and communicated to his writing 
friends when they call'd in as usual. They read it, 
commented on it in my hearing, and I had the ex- 
quisite pleasure of finding it met with their approba- 
tion, and that, in their different guesses at the author, 
none were named but men of some character among 
us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that 
I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps 
they were not really so very good ones as I then 
esteem'd them. 

Encourag'd, however, by this, I wrote and con- 
vey'd in the same way to the press several more 
papers which were equally approv'd ; and I kept 
my secret till my small fund of sense for such per- 
formances was pretty well exhausted, and then I dis- 
covered it, when I began to be considered a little 
more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner 

23 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably 
with reason, that it tended to make me too vain. 
And, perhaps, this might be one occasion of the 
differences that we began to have about this time. 
Though a brother, he considered himself as my 
master, and me as his apprentice, and, accordingly, 
expected the same services from me as he would 
from another, while I thought he demean' d me too 
much in some he requir'd of me, who from a brother 
expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often 
brought before our father, and I fancy I was either 
generally in the right, or else a better pleader, 
because the judgment was generally in my favor. 
But my brother was passionate, and had often 
beaten me, which I took extreamly amiss ; and, 
thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was 
continually wishing for some opportunity of shorten- 
ing it, which at length offered in a manner unex- 
pected. 1 

One of the pieces in our newspaper on some poli- 
tical point, which I have now forgotten, gave 
offense to the Assembly. He was taken up, cen- 
sur'd, and imprison'd for a month, by the speaker's 
warrant, I suppose, because he would not discover 
his author. I too was taken up and examin'd be- 
fore the council ; but, tho' I did not give them 
any satisfaction, they content'd themselves with 
admonishing me, and dismissed me, considering 
me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound to 
keep his master's secrets. 

During my brother's confinement, which I re- 
sented a good deal, notwithstanding our private 
differences, I had the management of the paper ; 
and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, 
which my brother took very kindly, while others 

1 l fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a 
meant of impressing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that 
has stuck to me through my whole life. 

2 4 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a 
young genius that had a turn for libelling and satyr. 
My brother's discharge was accompany'd with an 
order of the House (a very odd one), that " James 
Franklin should no longer print the paper called the Neiv 
England Courant." 

There was a consultation held in our printing- 
house among his friends, what he should do in this 
case. Some proposed to evade the order by chang- 
ing the name of the paper ; but my brother, seeing 
inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on 
as a better way, to let it be printed for the future 
under the name of Benjamin Franklin; and to 
avoid the censure of the Assembly, that might fall 
on him as still printing it by his apprentice, the con- 
trivance was that my old indenture should be re- 
turn' d to me, with a full discharge on the back of 
it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the 
benefit of my service, I was to sign new indentures 
for the remainder of the term, which were to be 
kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was ; how- 
ever, it was immediately executed, and the paper 
went on accordingly, under my name for several 
months. 

At length, a fresh difference arising between my 
brother and me, I took upon me to assert my free- 
dom, presuming that he would not venture to pro- 
duce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to 
take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon one 
of the first errata of my life ; but the unfairness of 
it weighed little with me, when under the impres- 
sions of resentment for the blows his passion too 
often urged him to bestow upon me, though he was 
otherwise not an ill-natur'd man : perhaps I was too 
saucy and provoking. 

When he found I would leave him, he took care 
to prevent my getting employment in any other 
printing-house of the town, by going round and 

25 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

speaking to every master, who accordingly refus'd 
to give me work. I then thought of going to New 
York, as the nearest place where there was a printer ; 
and I was rather inclin'd to leave Boston when I 
reflected that I had already made myself a little ob- 
noxious to the governing party, and, from the arbi- 
trary proceedings of the Assembly in my brothers 
case, it was likely I might, if I stay'd, soon bring 
myself into scrapes ; and farther, that my indiscrete 
disputations about religion began to make me pointed 
at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist. 
I determin'd on the point, but my father now siding 
with my brother, I was sensible that, if I attempted 
to go openly, means would be used to prevent me. 
My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to manage 
a little for me. He agreed with the captain of a 
New York sloop for my passage, under the notion 
of my being a young acquaintance of his, that had 
got a naughty girl with child, whose friends would 
compel me to marry her, and therefore I could not 
appear or come away publicly. So I sold some of 
my books to raise a little money, was taken on board 
privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days 
I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from 
home, a boy of but 17, without the least recom- 
mendation to, or knowledge of any person in the 
place, and with very little money in my pocket. 

My inclinations for the sea were by this time worne 
out, or I might now have gratify'd them. But, hav- 
ing a trade, and supposing myself a pretty good 
workman, I offer'd my service to the printer in the 
place, old Mr William Bradford, who had been the 
first printer in Pennsylvania, but removed from 
thence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could 
give me no employment, having little to do, and 
help enough already ; but says he, " My son at 
Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, 
Aquila Rose, by death ; if you go thither, I believe 

26 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

he may employ you." Philadelphia was a hundred 
miles further ; I set out, however, in a boat for 
Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me 
round by sea. 

In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that 
tore our rotten sails to pieces, prevented our getting 
into the Kill, and drove us upon Long Island. In 
our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passen- 
ger too, fell overboard ; when he was sinking, I 
reached through the water to his shock pate, and 
drew him up, so that we got him in again. His 
ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, 
taking first out of his pocket a book, which he de- 
sir'd I would dry for him. It proved to be my old 
favorite author, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in 
Dutch, finely printed on good paper, with copper 
cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen it wear in 
its own language. I have since found that it has 
been translated into most of the languages of Europe, 
and suppose it has been more generally read than 
any other book, except perhaps the Bible. Honest 
John was the first that I know of who mix'd narra- 
tion and dialogue ; a method of writing very engag- 
ing to the reader, who in the most interesting parts 
finds himself, as it were, brought into the company 
and present at the discourse. De Foe in his Cruso, 
his Moll Flanders, Religious Courtship, Family In- 
structor, and other pieces, has imitated it with suc- 
cess ; and Richardson has done the same in his 
Pamela, etc. 

When we drew near the island, we found it was 
at a place where there could be no landing, there 
being a great surfF on the stony beach. So we 
dropt anchor, and swung round towards the 
shore. Some people came down to the water edge 
and hallow'd to us, as we did to them ; but the wind 
was so high, and the surfF so loud, that we could not 
hear so as to understand each other. There were 

*7 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and hal- 
low' d that they should fetch us ; but they either did 
not understand us, or thought it impracticable, so 
they went away, and night coming on, we had no 
remedy but to wait till the wind should abate ; and, 
in the mean time, the boatman and I concluded to 
sleep, if we could ; and so crowded into the scuttle, 
with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray 
beating over the head of our boat, leak'd thro' to us, 
so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this 
manner we lay all night, with very little rest ; but, 
the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to 
reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours 
on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a 
bottle of filthy rum, and the water we sail'd on being 
salt. 

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and 
went into bed ; but, having read somewhere that cold 
water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I fol- 
low'd the prescription, sweat plentiful most of the 
night, my fever left me, and in the morning, cross- 
ing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, 
having fifty miles to Burlington, where I was told 
I should find boats that would carry me the rest of 
the way to Philadelphia. 

It rained very hard all the day ; I was thoroughly 
soak'd, and by noon a good deal tired ; so I stopt 
at a poor inn, where I staid all night, beginning now 
to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miser- 
able a figure, too, that I found, by the questions ask'd 
me, I was suspected to be some runaway servant, 
and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. 
However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the 
evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of 
Burlington, kept by one Dr Brown. He entered 
into conversation with me while I took some re- 
freshment, and, finding I had read a little, became 
very sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance con- 

28 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tinu'd as long as he liv'd. He had been, I imagine, 
an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in 
England, or country in Europe, of which he 
could not give a very particular account. He 
had some letters, and was ingenious, but much of 
an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years 
after, to travestie the Bible in doggrel verse, as 
Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many 
of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and might 
have hurt weak minds if his work had been pub- 
lished ; but it never was. 

At his house I lay that night, and the next morn- 
ing reach'd Burlington, but had the mortification to 
find that the regular boats were gone a little before 
my coming, and no other expected to go before 
Tuesday, this being Saturday ; wherefore I returned 
to an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought 
gingerbread to eat on the water, and ask'd her 
advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till a 
passage by water should offer ; and being tired with 
my foot travelling, I accepted the invitation. She 
understanding I was a printer, would have had me 
stay at that town and follow my business, being 
ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She 
was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek 
with great good will, accepting only of a pot of ale 
in return ; and I thought myself fixed till Tuesday 
should come. However, walking in the evening by 
the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found 
was going towards Philadelphia, with several people 
in her. They took me in, and, as there was no 
wind, we row'd all the way ; and about midnight, 
not having yet seen the city, some of the company 
were confident we must have passed it, and would 
row no farther ; the others knew not where we were; 
so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed 
near an old fence, with the rails of which we made 
a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there 

29 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

we remained till daylight. Then one of the com- 
pany knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little 
above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we 
got out of the creek, and arriv'd there about eight 
or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed 
at the Market-street wharf. 

I have been the more particular in this description 
of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into 
that city, that you may in your mind compare such 
unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since 
made there. I was in my working dress, my best 
clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty 
from my journey ; my pockets were stufF'd out with 
shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where 
to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travelling, 
rowing, and want of rest, I was very hungry ; and 
my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, 
and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave 
the people of the boat for my passage, who at first 
refus'd it, on account of my rowing ; but I insisted 
on their taking it. A man being sometimes more 
generous when he has but a little money than when 
he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought 
to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till 
near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I 
had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring 
where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's 
he directed me to, in Second-street, and ask'd for 
bisket, intending such as we had in Boston ; but 
they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. 
Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told 
they had none such. So not considering or know- 
ing the difference of money, and the greater cheap- 
ness nor the names of his bread, I bad him give 
me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, 
accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surpriz'd 
at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in 

30 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

my pockets, walk'd off with a roll under each arm, 
and eating the other. Thus I went up Market- 
street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of 
Mr Read, my future wife's father ; when she, 
standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, 
as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous ap- 
pearance. Then I turned and went down Chesnut- 
street and part of Walnut-street, eating my roll all 
the way, and, coming round, found myself again at 
Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to 
which I went for a draught of the river water ; and, 
being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other 
two to a woman and her child that came down 
the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to 
go farther. 

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, 
which by this time had many clean-dressed people 
in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined 
them, and thereby was led into the great meeting- 
house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down 
among them, and, after looking round awhile and 
hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labor 
and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast 
asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, 
when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, 
therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in 
Philadelphia. 

Walking down again toward the river, and, look- 
ing in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker 
man, whose countenance I lik'd, and, accosting him, 
requested he would tell me where a stranger could 
get lodging. We were then near the sign of the 
Three Mariners. " Here," says he, " is one place 
that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable 
house ; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a 
better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet in 
Water-street. Here I got a dinner ; and, while I 
was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, 

3* 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and 
appearance, that I might be some runaway. 

After dinner, my sleepiness return'd, and being 
shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, and 
slept till six in the evening, was call'd to supper, 
went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till 
next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I 
could, and went to Andrew Bradford the printer's. 
I found in the shop the old man his father, whom I 
had seen at New York, and who, travelling on horse- 
back, had got to Philadelphia before me. He intro- 
duce me to his son, who receiv'd me civilly, gave 
me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present 
want a hand, being lately suppli'd with one ; but 
there was another printer in town, lately set up, one 
Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me *, if not, I 
should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he 
would give me a little work to do now and then till 
fuller business should offer. 

The old gentleman said he would go with me to 
the new printer ; and when we found him, " Neigh- 
bor," says Bradford, " I have brought to see you a 
young man of your business ; perhaps you may 
want such a one." He ask'd me a few questions, 
put a composing stick in my hand to see how I 
work'd, and then said he would employ me soon, 
though he had just then nothing for me to do ; and, 
taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen 
before, to be one of the town's people that had a 
good will for him, enter'd into a conversation on 
his present undertaking and prospects ; while Brad- 
ford, not discovering that he was the other printer's 
father, on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get 
the greatest part of the business into his own hands, 
drew him on by artful questions, and starting little 
doubts, to explain all his views, what interest he 
reli'd on, and in what manner he intended to pro- 
ceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw imme- 

32 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

diately that one of them was a crafty old sophister, 
and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with 
Keimer, who was greatly surprised when I told him 
who the old man was. 

Keimer's printing-house, I found, consisted of an 
old shatter'd press, and one small, worn-out font of 
English, which he was then using himself, composing 
an Elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an in- 
genious young man, of excellent character, much 
respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, and a 
pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very 
indifferently. He could not be said to write them, 
for his manner was to compose them in the types 
directly out of his head. So there being no copy, 
but one pair of cases, and the Elegy likely to require 
all the letter, no one could help him. I endeavor' d 
to put his press (which he had not yet us'd, and of 
which he understood nothing) into order fit to be 
work'd with ; and, promising to come and print off 
his Elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I 
return'd to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to 
do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. 
A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off 
the Elegy. And now he had got another pair of 
cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set 
me to work. 

These two printers I found poorly qualified for 
their business. Bradford had not been bred to it, 
and was very illiterate j and Keimer, tho' some- 
thing of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing 
nothing of presswork. He had been one of the 
French prophets, and could act their enthusiastic 
agitations. At this time he did not profess any par- 
ticular religion, but something of all on occasion ; 
was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I 
afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his 
composition. He did not like my lodging at 
Bradford's while I work'd with him. He had a 
c 3g 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could 
not lodge me ; but he got me a lodging at Mr 
Read's, before mentioned, who was the owner of 
his house ; and, my chest and clothes being come 
by this time, I made rather a more respectable 
appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had 
done when she first happen'd to see me eating 
my roll in the street. 

I began now to have some acquaintance among the 
young people of the town, that were lovers of read- 
ing, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly ; 
and gaining money by my industry and frugality, I 
lived very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as 
I could, and not desiring that any there should know 
where I resided, except my friend Collins, who was 
in my secret, and kept it when I wrote to him. At 
length, an incident happened that sent me back again 
much sooner than I had intended. I had a brother- 
in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop that traded 
between Boston and Delaware. He being at New- 
castle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard there of 
me, and wrote me a letter mentioning the concern of 
my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assur- 
ing me of their good will to me, and that every thing 
would be accommodated to my mind if I would return, 
to which he exhorted me very earnestly. I wrote an 
answer to his letter, thank'd him for his advice, but 
stated my reasons for quitting Boston fully and in 
such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong 
as he had apprehended. 

Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was 
then at Newcastle, and Captain Holmes, happening 
to be in company with him when my letter came to 
hand, spoke to him of me, and show'd him the letter. 
The governor read it, and seem'd surpris'd when he 
was told of my age. He said I appear'd a young 
man of promising parts, and therefore should be 
encouraged ; the printers at Philadelphia were 

34 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wretched ones ; and, if I would set up there, he 
made no doubt I should succeed ; for his part, he 
would procure me the public business, and do me 
every other service in his power. This my brother- 
in-law afterwards told me in Boston, but I knew as 
yet nothing of it 5 when, one day, Keimer and I 
being at work together near the window, we saw 
the governor and another gentleman (which proved 
to be Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely dress'd, 
come directly across the street to our house, and 
heard them at the door. 

Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit 
to him j but the governor inquir'd for me, came up, 
and with a condescension and politeness I had been 
quite unus'd to, made me many compliments, desired 
to be acquainted with me, blam'd me kindly for not 
having made myself known to him when I first came 
to the place, and would have me away with him to 
the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French 
to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was 
not a little surprised, and Keimer star'd like a pig 
poison' d. I went, however, with the governor and 
Colonel French to a tavern, at the corner of Third- 
street, and over the Madeira he propos'd my setting 
up my business, laid before me the probabilities of 
success, and both he and Colonel French assur'd me 
I should have their interest and influence in procuring 
the public business of both governments. On my 
doubting whether my father would assist me in it, 
Sir William said he would give me a letter to him, in 
which he would state the advantages, and he did not 
doubt of prevailing with him. So it was concluded 
I should return to Boston in the first vessel, with the 
governor's letter recommending me to my father. In 
the mean time the intention was to be kept a secret, 
and I went on working with Keimer as usual, the 
governor sending for me now and then to dine with 
him, a very great honor I thought it, and conversing 

35 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly 
manner imaginable. 

About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel 
offer'd for Boston. I took leave of Keimer as going 
to see my friends. The governor gave me an ample 
letter, saying many flattering things of me to my 
father, and strongly recommending the project of 
my setting up at Philadelphia as a thing that must 
make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going 
down the bay, and sprung a leak ; we had a 
blustering time at sea, and were oblig'd to pump 
almost continually, at which I took my turn. We 
arriv'd safe, however, at Boston in about a fortnight. 
I had been absent seven months, and my friends 
had heard nothing of me ; for my br. Holmes was 
not yet return'd, and had not written about me. 
My unexpected appearance surpriz'd the family ; 
all were, however, very glad to see me, and made 
me welcome, except my brother. I went to see 
him at his printing-house. I was better dress'd 
than ever while in his service, having a genteel new 
suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets 
lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver. He 
receiv'd me not very frankly, look'd me all over, 
and turn'd to his work again. 

The journeymen were inquisitive where I had 
been, what sort of a country it was, and how I lik'd 
it. I prais'd it much, and the happy life I led in it, 
expressing strongly my intention of returning to it ; 
and, one of them asking what kind of money we 
had there, I produc'd a handful of silver, and 
spread it before them, which was a kind of raree- 
show they had not been us'd to, paper being the 
money of Boston. Then I took an opportunity of 
letting them see my watch ; and, lastly (my brother 
still grum and sullen), I gave them a piece of eight 
to drink, and took my leave. This visit of mine 
offended him extreamly ; for, when my mother some 

36 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

time after spoke to him of a reconciliation, and of 
her wishes to see us on good terms together, and 
that we might live for the future as brothers, he 
said I had insulted him in such a manner before his 
people that he could never forget or forgive it. In 
this, however, he was mistaken. 

My father received the governor's letter with some 
apparent surprise, but said little of it to me for some 
days, when Capt. Holmes returning he showed it 
to him, ask'd him if he knew Keith, and what kind 
of man he was ; adding his opinion that he must be 
of small discretion to think of setting a boy up in 
business who wanted yet three years of being at 
man's estate. Holmes said what he could in favor 
of the project, but my father was clear in the impro- 
priety of it, and at last gave a flat denial to it. Then 
he wrote a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him 
for the patronage he had so kindly offered me, but 
declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being, 
in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the 
management of a business so important, and for 
which the preparation must be so expensive. 

My friend and companion Collins, who was a 
clerk in the post-office, pleas'd with the account I 
gave him of my new country, determined to go 
thither also ; and, while I waited for my father's 
determination, he set out before me by land to 
Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a 
pretty collection of mathematicks and natural philo- 
sophy, to come with mine and me to New York, 
where he propos'd to wait for me. 

My father, tho' he did not approve Sir William's 
proposition, was yet pleas'd that I had been able 
to obtain so advantageous a character from a person 
of such note where I had resided, and that I had 
been so industrious and careful as to equip myself 
so handsomely in so short a time ; therefore, seeing 
no prospect of an accommodation between my 

37 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning 
again to Philadelphia, advis'd me to behave respect- 
fully to the people there, endeavor to obtain the 
general esteem, and avoid lampooning and libeling, 
to which he thought I had too much inclination j 
telling me, that by steady industry and a prudent 
parsimony I might save enough by the time I was 
one-and-twenty to set me up ; and that, if I came 
near the matter, he would help me out with the 
rest. This was all I could obtain, except some 
small gifts as tokens of his and my mother's love, 
when I embark'd again for New York, now with 
their approbation and their blessing. 

The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, 
I visited my brother John, who had been married 
and settled there some years. He received me very 
affectionately, for he always lov'd me. A friend of 
his, one Vernon, having some money due to him in 
Pensilvania, about thirty-five pounds currency, de- 
sired I would receive it for him, and keep it till 
I had his directions what to remit it in. Accord- 
ingly, he gave me an order. This afterwards 
occasion'd me a good deal of uneasiness. 

At Newport we took in a number of passengers 
for New York, among which were two young 
women, companions, and a grave, sensible, matron- 
like Quaker woman, with her attendants. I had 
shown an obliging readiness to do her some little 
services, which impress'd her I suppose with a 
degree of good will toward me ; therefore, when 
she saw a daily growing familiarity between me and 
the two young women, which they appear'd to 
encourage, she took me aside, and said, " Young 
man, I am concern'd for thee, as thou has no friend 
with thee, and seems not to know much of the 
world, or of the snares youth is expos'd to ; depend 
upon it, those are very bad women ; I can see it 
in all their actions ; and if thee art not upon thy 

38 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

guard, they will draw thee into some danger ; they 
are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly 
concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance 
with them." As I seem'd at first not to think so 
ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things 
she had observ'd and heard that had escap'd my 
notice, but now convinc'd me she was right. I 
thank'd her for her kind advice, and promis'd to 
follow it. "When we arriv'd at New York, they 
told me where they liv'd, and invited me to come 
and see them ; but I avoided it, and it was well I 
did ; for the next day the captain miss'd a silver 
spoon and some other things, that had been taken 
out of his cabbin, and, knowing that these were a 
couple of strumpets, he got a warrant to search their 
lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the 
thieves punish'd. So, tho* we had escap'd a sunken 
rock, which we scrap'd upon in the passage, I 
thought this escape of rather more importance to 
me. 

At New York I found my friend Collins, who 
had arriv'd there some time before me. "We had 
been intimate from children, and had read the same 
books together ; but he had the advantage of more 
time for reading and studying, and a wonderful 
genius for mathematical learning, in which he far 
outstript me. While I liv'd in Boston, most of my 
hours of leisure for conversation were spent with 
him, and he continu'd a sober as well as an indus- 
trious lad ; was much respected for his learning by 
several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and 
seemed to promise making a good figure in life. 
But, during my absence, he had acquir'd a habit of 
sotting with brandy ; and I found by his own 
account, and what I heard from others, that he had 
been drunk every day since his arrival at New 
York, and behav'd very oddly. He had gam'd, too, 
and lost his money, so that I was oblig'd to dis- 

39 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

charge his lodgings, and defray his expenses to and 
at Philadelphia, which prov'd extremely inconvenient 
to me. 

The then governor of New York, Burnet (son 
of Bishop Burnet), hearing from the captain that 
a young man, one of his passengers, had a great 
many books, desir'd he would bring me to see him. 
I waited upon him accordingly, and should have 
taken Collins with me but that he was not sober. 
The gov'r. treated me with great civility, show'd 
me his library, which was a very large one, and we 
had a good deal of conversation about books and 
authors. This was the second governor who had 
done me the honor to take notice of me ; which, to 
a poor boy like me, was very pleasing. 

We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on 
the way Vernon's money, without which we could 
hardly have finish'd our journey. Collins wished 
to be employ'd in some counting - house ; but, 
whether they discover'd his dramming by his breath, 
or by his behaviour, tho* he had some recommenda- 
tions, he met with no success in any appl'cation, 
and continu'd lodging and boarding at the same 
house with me, and at my expense. Knowing I 
had that money of Vernon's, he was continually 
borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon 
as he should be in business. At length he had got 
so much of it that I was distress'd to think what I 
should do in case of being call'd on to remit it. 

His drinking continu'd, about which we some- 
times quarrell'd ; for, when a little intoxicated, he 
was very fractious. Once, in a boat on the Dela- 
ware with some other young men, he refused to row 
in his turn. " I will be row'd home," says he. 
" We will not row you," says I. " You must, or 
stay all night on the water," says he, "just as you 
please." The others said, " Let us row ; what 
signifies it ? " But, my mind being soured with his 

40 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

other conduct, I continu'd to refuse. So he swore 
he would make me row, or throw me overboard ; 
and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward 
me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped 
my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him 
head-foremost into the river. I knew he was a good 
swimmer, and so was under little concern about 
him ; but before he could get round to lay hold of 
the boat, we had with a few strokes pull'd her out 
of his reach ; and ever when he drew near the 
boat, we ask'd if he would row, striking a few 
strokes to slide her away from him. He was ready 
to die with vexation, and obstinately would not 
promise to row. However, seeing him at last be- 
ginning to tire, we lifted him in and brought him 
home dripping wet in the evening. We hardly ex- 
chang'd a civil word afterwards, and a "West India 
captain, who had a commission to procure a tutor 
for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, happen- 
ing to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. 
He left me then, promising to remit me the first 
money he should receive in order to discharge the 
debt ; but I never heard of him after. 

The breaking into this money of Vernon's was 
one of the first great errata of my life ; and this 
affair show'd that my father was not much out in 
his judgment when he suppos'd me too young to 
manage business of importance. But Sir William, 
on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. 
There was great difference in persons ; and dis- 
cretion did not always accompany years, nor was 
youth always without it. " And since he will not 
set you up," says he, " I will do it myself. Give 
me an inventory of the things necessary to be had 
from England, and I will send for them. You 
shall repay me when you are able ; I am resolv'd to 
have a good printer here, and I am sure you must 
succeed." This was spoken with such an appear- 

41 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ance of cordiality, that I had not the least doubt of 
his meaning what he said. I had hitherto kept the 
proposition of my setting up, a secret in Phila- 
delphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known 
that I depended on the governor, probably some 
friend, that knew him better, would have advis'd 
me not to rely on him, as I afterwards heard it as 
his known character to be liberal of promises which 
he never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he 
was by me, how could I think his generous offers 
insincere ? I believ'd him one of the best men in 
the world. 

I presented him an inventory of a little print'g- 
house, amounting by my computation to about one 
hundred pounds sterling. He lik'd it, but ask'd 
me if my being on the spot in England to chuse the 
types, and see that every thing was good of the 
kind, might not be of some advantage. "Then," 
says he, " when there, you may make acquaintances, 
and establish correspondences in the bookselling 
and stationery way." I agreed that this might be 
advantageous. " Then," says he, " get yourself 
ready to go with Annis ; " which was the annual 
ship, and the only one at that time usually passing 
between London and Philadelphia. But it would 
be some months before Annis sail'd, so I continu'd 
working with Keimer, fretting about the money 
Collins had got from me, and in daily apprehensions 
of being call'd upon by Vernon, which, however, 
did not happen for some years after. 

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my 
first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block 
Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled 
up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my reso- 
lution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion 
I consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking 
every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since 
none of them had, or ever could do us any injury 

42 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed 
very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great 
lover- of fish, and, when this came hot out of the 
frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd 
some time between principle and inclination, till I 
recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw 
smaller fish taken out of their stomachs ; then 
thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why 
we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very 
heartily, and continued to eat with other people, 
returning only now and then occasionally to a vege- 
table diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a 
reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or 
make a reason for every thing one has a mind 
to do. 

Keimer and I liv'd on a pretty good familiar 
footing, and agreed tolerably well, for he suspected 
nothing of my setting up. He retained a great deal 
of his old enthusiasms and lov'd argumentation. 
We therefore had many disputations. I used to 
work him so with my Socratic method, and had 
trepann'd him so often by questions apparently so 
distant from any point we had in hand, and yet by 
degrees lead to the point, and brought him into 
difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew 
ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me 
the most common question, without asking first, 
" What do you intend to infer from that ? " However, 
it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the 
confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being 
his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new 
sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to 
confound all opponents. When he came to explain 
with me upon the doctrines, I found several conun- 
drums which I objected to, unless I might have my 
way a little to, and introduce some of mine. 

Keimer wore his beard at full length, because 
somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, " Thou shali 

43 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

not mar the corners of thy beard." He likewise kept 
the Seventh day, Sabbath ; and these two points 
were essentials with him. I dislik'd both ; but 
agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting 
the doctrine of using no animal food. "I doubt," 
said he, " my constitution will not bear that." I 
assur'd him it would, and that he would be the 
better for it. He was usually a great glutton, and 
I promised myself some diversion in half starving 
him. He agreed to try the practice, if I would 
keep him company. I did so, and we held it for 
three months. We had our victuals dress'd, and 
brought to us regularly by a woman in the neigh- 
borhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, 
to be prepar'd for us at different times, in all which 
there was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and the whim 
suited me the better at this time from the cheapness 
of it, not costing us above eighteenpence sterling 
each per week. I have since kept several Lents 
most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and 
that for the common, abruptly, without the least in- 
convenience, so that I think there is little in the 
advice of making those changes by easy gradations. 
I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered 
grievously, tired of the project, long'd for the flesh- 
pots of Egypt, and order' d a roast pig. He invited 
me and two women friends to dine with him ; but, 
it being brought too soon upon table, he could 
not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before 
we came. 

I had made some courtship during this time to 
Miss Read. I had a great respect and affection for 
her, and had some reason to believe she had the 
same for me ; but, as I was about to take a long 
voyage, and we were both very young, only a little 
above eighteen, it was thought most prudent by her 
mother to prevent our going too far at present, as 
a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more 

44 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

convenient after my return, when I should be, as I 
expected, set up in my business. Perhaps, too, she 
thought my expectations not so well founded as I 
imagined them to be. 

My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles 
Osborne, Joseph "Watson, and James Ralph, all 
lovers of reading. The two first were clerks to an 
eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town, 
Charles Brogden ; the other was clerk to a mer- 
chant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of 
great integrity ; the others rather more lax in their 
principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as 
well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for 
which they both made me suffer. Osborne was 
sensible, candid, frank ; sincere and affectionate to 
his friends ; but, in literary matters, too fond of 
criticising. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his 
manners, and extremely eloquent ; I think I never 
knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers 
of poetry, and began to try their hands in little 
pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together 
on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where 
we read to one another, and conferr'd on what we 
read. 

Ralph was inclin'd to pursue the study of poetry, 
not doubting but he might become eminent in it, 
and make his fortune by it, alleging that the best 
poets must, when they first began to write, make as 
many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, 
assur'd him he had no genius for poetry, and 
advis'd him to think of nothing beyond the business 
he was bred to ; that, in the mercantile way, tho' 
he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and 
punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a 
factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on 
his own account. I approv'd the amusing one's 
self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve 
one's language, but no farther. 

45 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

On this it was propos'd that we should each of us, 
at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own 
composing, in order to improve by our mutual 
observations, criticisms, and corrections. As lan- 
guage and expression were what we had in view, 
we excluded all considerations of invention by 
agreeing that the task should be a version of the 
eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a 
Deity. When the time of our meeting drew nigh, 
Ralph called on me first, and let me know his piece 
was ready. I told him I had been busy, and, 
having little inclination, had done nothing. He 
then show'd me his piece for my opinion, and I much 
approv'd it, as it appear'd to me to have great merit. 
" Now," says he, " Osborne never will allow the 
least merit in any thing of mine, but makes looo 
criticisms out of mere envy. He is not so jealous of 
you ; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece, 
and produce it as yours ; I will pretend not to have 
had time, and so produce nothing. We shall then 
see what he will say to it." It was agreed, and I 
immediately transcrib'd it, that it might appear in 
my own hand. 

We met ; Watson's performance was read ; there 
were some beauties in it, but many defects. 
Osborne's was read ; it was much better ; Ralph 
did it justice ; remarked some faults, but applauded 
the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. 
I was backward ; seemed desirous of being excused ; 
had not had sufficient time to correct, etc. ; but no 
excuse could be admitted ; produce I must. It was 
read and repeated ; Watson and Osborne gave up 
the contest, and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only 
made some criticisms, and propos'd some amend- 
ments ; but I defended my text. Osborne was 
against Ralph, and told him he was no better a 
critic than poet, so he dropt the argument. As 
they two went home together, Osborne expressed 

46 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

himself still more strongly in favor of what he 
thought my production ; having restrain'd himself 
before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery. 
" But who would have imagin'd," said he, " that 
Franklin had been capable of such a performance ; 
such painting, such force, such fire ! He has even 
improv'd the original. In his common conversation 
he seems to have no choice of words ; he hesitates 
and blunders ; and yet, good God ! how he writes ! " 
When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we 
had plaid him, and Osborne was a little laught at. 

This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of 
becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him 
from it, but he continued scribbling verses till Pope 
cured him. He became, however, a pretty good 
prose writer. More of him hereafter. But, as I 
may not have occasion again to mention the other 
two, I shall just remark here, that Watson died in 
my arms a few years after, much lamented, being 
the best of our set. Osborne went to the West 
Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer and 
made money, but died young. He and I had made 
a serious agreement, that the one who happen' d 
first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit 
to the other, and acquaint him how he found things 
in that separate state. But he never fuifill'd his 
promise. 

The governor, seeming to like my company, had 
me frequently to his house, and his setting me up 
was always mention'd as a fixed thing. I was to 
take with me letters recommendatory to a number 
of his friends, besides the letter of credit to furnish 
me with the necessary money for purchasing the 
press and types, paper, etc. For these letters I was 
appointed to call at different times, when they wera 
to be ready, but a future time was still named. 
Thus he went on till the ship, whose departure too 
had been several times postponed, was on the point 

47 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

of sailing. Then, when I call'd to take my leave 
and receive the letters, his secretary, Dr Bard, came 
out to me and said the governor was extremely busy 
in writing, but would be down at Newcastle before 
the ship, and there the letters would be delivered 
to me. 

Ralph, though married, and having one child, had 
determined to accompany me in this voyage. It 
was thought he intended to establish a correspond- 
ence, and obtain goods to sell on commission ; but I 
found afterwards, that, thro' some discontent with 
his wife's relations, he purposed to leave her on 
their hands, and never return again. Having taken 
leave of my friends, and interchang'd some promises 
with Miss Read, I left Philadelphia in the ship, 
which anchor' d at Newcastle. The governor was 
there ; but when I went to his lodging, the secretary 
came to me from him with the civillest message in 
the world, that he could not then see me, being 
engaged in business of the utmost importance, but 
should send the letters to me on board, wished me 
heartily a good voyage and a speedy return, etc. I 
returned on board a little puzzled, but still not 
doubting. 

Mr Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer of Phila- 
delphia, had taken passage in the same ship for 
himself and son, and with Mr Denham, a Quaker 
merchant, and Messrs Onion and Russel, masters 
of an iron work in Maryland, had engag'd the 
great cabin ; so that Ralph and I were forced to 
take up with a berth in the steerage, and none on 
board knowing us, were considered as ordinary per- 
sons. But Mr Hamilton and his son (it was James, 
since governor) return' d from Newcastle to Phila- 
delphia, the father being recall'd by a great fee to 
plead for a seized ship ; and, just before we sail'd, 
Colonel French coming on board, and showing me 
great respect, I was more taken notice of, and, with 

4 8 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

my friend Ralph, invited by the other gentlemen to 
come into the cabin, there being now room. Ac- 
cordingly, we remov'd thither. 

Understanding that Colonel French had brought 
on board the governor's despatches, I ask'd the 
captain for those letters that were to be under my 
care. He said all were put into the bag together 
and he could not then come at them ; but, before 
we landed in England, I should have an opportunity 
of picking them out; so I was satisfied for the 
present, and we proceeded on our vovage. We had 
a sociable company in the cabin, and lived uncom- 
monly well, having the addition of all Mr Hamilton's 
stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this passage 
Mr Denham contracted a friendship for me that 
continued during his life. The voyage was other- 
wise not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of 
bad weather. 

When we came into the Channel, the captain kept 
his word with me, and gave me an opportunity of 
examining the bag for the governor's letters. I 
found none upon which my name was put as under 
my care. I picked out six or seven, that, by the 
handwriting, I thought might be the promised 
letters, especially as one of them was directed to 
Basket, the king's printer, and another to some sta- 
tioner. We arriv'd in London the 24th of Decem- 
ber, 1724. I waited upon the stationer, who came 
first in my way, delivering the letter as from Gover- 
nor Keith. " I don't know such a person," says he ; 
but, opening the letter, " O ! this is from Riddles- 
den. I have lately found him to be a compleat 
rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor 
receive any letters from him." So, putting the letter 
into my hand, he turn'd on his heel and left me to 
serve some customer. I was surprized to find these 
were not the governor's letters ; and, after recollect- 
ing and comparing circumstances, I began to doubt 
d 49 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

his sincerity. I found my friend Denham, and 
opened the whole affair to him. He let me into 
Keith's character ; told me there was not the least 
probability that he had written any letters for me ; 
that no one, who knew him, had the smallest de- 
pendence on him ; and he laught at the notion of the 
governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, as. 
he said, no credit to give. On my expressing some 
concern about what I should do, he advised me to 
endeavor getting some employment in the way of 
my business. " Among the printers here," said he, 
" you will improve yourself, and when you return 
to America, you will set up to greater advantage." 

We both of us happen'd to know, as well as the 
stationer, that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very 
knave. He had half ruin'd Miss Read's father by 
persuading him to be bound for him. By this letter 
it appear'd there was a secret scheme on foot to the 
prejudice of Hamilton (suppos'd to be then coming 
over with us) ; and that Keith was concerned in it 
with Riddlesden. Denham, who was a friend of 
Hamilton's thought he ought to be acquainted with 
it ; so, when he arrivM in England, which was soon 
after, partly from resentment and ill-will to Keith 
and Riddlesden, and partly from good-will to him, 
I waited on him, and gave him the letter. He 
thank'd me cordially, the information being of im- 
portance to him ; and from that time he became my 
friend, greatly to my advantage afterwards on many 
occasions. 

But what shall we think of a governor's playing 
such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor 
ignorant boy ! It was a habit he had acquired. He 
wish'd to please everybody ; and, having little to 
give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an 
ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and 
a good governor for the people, tho' not for his 
constituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he 

5° 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws 
were of his planning and passed during his ad- 
ministration. 

Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We 
took lodgings together in Little Britain at three 
shillings and sixpence a week — as much as we could 
then afford. He found some relations, but they 
were poor, and unable to assist him. He now let 
me know his intentions of remaining in London, 
and that he never meant to return to Philadelphia. 
He had brought no money with him, the whole he 
could muster having been expended in paying his 
passage. I had fifteen pistoles ; so he borrowed 
occasionally of me to subsist, while he was looking 
out for business. He first endeavored to get into 
the playhouse, believing himself qualify'd for an 
actor; but Wilkes, to whom he appiy'd, advis'd 
him candidly not to think of that employment, as it 
was impossible he should succeed in it. Then he 
propos'd to Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, 
to write for him a weekly paper like the Spectator, 
on certain conditions, which Roberts did not ap- 
prove. Then he endeavored to get employment as 
a hackney writer, to copy for the stationers and 
lawyers about the Temple, but could find no 
vacancy. 

I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a 
famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, and 
here I continu'd near a year. I was pretty diligent, 
but spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings in 
going to plays and other places of amusement. We 
had together consumed all my pistoles, and now just 
rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seem'd quite 
to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my 
engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never 
wrote more than one letter, and that was to let her 
know I was not likely soon to return. This was 
another of the great errata of my life, which I should 

51 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

wish to correct if I were to live it over again. In 
fact, by our expenses, I was constantly kept unable 
to pay my passage. 

At Palmer's I was employed in composing for 
the second edition of Wollaston's " Religion of 
Nature." Some of his reasonings not appearing to 
me well founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece 
in which I made remarks on them. It was entitled 
" A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure 
and Pain." I inscribed it to my friend Ralph ; I 
printed a small number. It occasion'd my being 
more consider' d by Mr Palmer as a young man 
of some ingenuity, tho' he seriously expostulated 
with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which 
to him appear'd abominable. My printing this 
pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodg'd 
in Little Britain, I made an acquaintance with one 
Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was at the next 
door. He had an immense collection of second- 
hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in 
use ; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable 
terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, 
read, and return any of his books. This I esteem'd 
a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as 
I could. 

My pamphlet by some means falling into the 
hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book 
entitled " The Infallibility of Human Judgment," it 
occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took 
great notice of me, called on me often to converse 
on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale 

alehouse in Lane, Cheapside, and introduced 

me to Dr Mandeville, author of the " Fable of the 
Bees," who had a club there, of which he was the 
soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion. 
Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr Pemberton, at 
Batson's Coffee-house, who promis'd to give me an 
opportunity, some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac 

52 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Newton, of which I was extreamely desirous ; but 
this never happened. 

I had brought over a few curiosities, among which 
the principal was a purse made of the asbestos, 
which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane heard of 
it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in 
Bloomsbury Square, where he show'd me all his 
curiosities, and persuaded me to let him add that to 
the number, for which he paid me handsomely. 

In our house there lodg'd a young woman, a mil- 
liner, who, I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. 
She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and 
lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph 
read plays to her in the evenings, they grew inti- 
mate, she took another lodging, and he followed 
her. They liv'd together some time ; but, he being 
still out of business, and her income not sufficient 
to maintain them with her child, he took a resolu- 
tion of going from London, to try for a country 
school, which he thought himself well qualified to 
undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and was 
a master of arithmetic and accounts. This, how- 
ever, he deemed a business below him, and confi- 
dent of future better fortune, when he should be 
unwilling to have it known that he once was so 
meanly employed, he changed his name, and did 
me the honor to assume mine ; for I soon after had 
a letter from him, acquainting me that he was set- 
tled in a small village (in Berkshire, I think it was, 
where he taught reading and writing to ten or a 
dozen boys, at sixpence each per week), recom- 
mending Mrs T to my care, and desiring me 

to write to him, directing for Mr Franklin, school- 
master, at such a place. 

He continued to write frequently, sending me 
large specimens of an epic poem which he was then 
composing, and desiring my remarks and correc- 
tions. These I gave him from time to time, but 

53 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

endeavor'd rather to discourage his proceeding. 
One of Young's Satires was then just published. I 
copy'd and sent him a great part of it, which set in 
a strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with 
any hope of advancement by them. All was in 
rain ; sheets of the poem continued to come by 

every post. In the mean time, Mrs T , having 

on his account lost her friends and business, was 
often in distresses, and us'd to send for me, and 
borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. 
I grew fond of her company, and, being at that time 
under no religious restraint, and presuming upon 
my importance to her, I attempted familiarities 
(another erratum) which she repuls'd with a proper 
resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. 
This made a breach between us ; and, when he 
returned again to London, he let me know he 
thought I had cancell'd all the obligations he had 
been under to me. So I found I was never to ex- 
pect his repaying me what I lent to him, or advanc'd 
for him. This, however, was not then of much 
consequence, as he was totally unable ; and in the 
loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from 
a burthen. I now began to think of getting a 
little money beforehand, and, expecting better 
work, I left Palmer's to work at Watts's, near 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater printing-house. 
Here I continued all the rest of my stay in 
London. 

At my first admission into this printing-house I 
took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of 
the bodily exercise I had been us'd to in America, 
where presswork is mix'd with composing. I drank 
only water ; the other workmen, near fifty in num- 
ber, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I 
carried up and down stairs a large form of types in 
each hand, when others carried but one in both 
hands. They wondered to see, from this and several 

54 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

instances, that the Water- American, as they called 
me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong 
beer ! We had an alehouse boy who attended 
always in the house to supply the workmen. My 
companion at the press drank every day a pint before 
breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and 
cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint 
at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, 
and another when he had done his day's work. I 
thought it a detestable custom ; but it was neces- 
sary, he suppos'd, to drink strong beer, that he 
might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince 
him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could 
only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the 
barley dissolved in the water of which it was made ; 
that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread ; 
and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of 
water, it would give him more strength than a 
quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had 
four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every 
Saturday night for that muddling liquor ; an expense 
I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep 
themselves always under. 

Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in 
the composing-room, I left the pressmen ; a new 
bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings, was 
demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it 
an imposition, as I had paid below ; the master 
thought so too, and forbad my paying it. I stood 
out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered 
as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces 
of private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts, 
transposing my pages, breaking my matter, etc., 
etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all 
ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever 
haunted those not regularly admitted, that, notwith- 
standing the master's protection, n I found myself 
oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of 

55 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to 
live with continually. 

I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon 
acquir'd considerable influence. I propos'd some 
reasonable alterations in their chappel 1 laws, and 
carried them against all opposition, From my ex- 
ample, a great part of them left their muddling 
breakfast of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they 
could with me be suppl'd from a neighboring house 
with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled 
with pepper, crumb' d with bread, and a bit of butter 
in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three 
half-pence. This was a more comfortable as well 
as cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. 
Those who continued sotting with beer all day, were 
often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, 
and us'd to make interest with me to get beer ; their 
light, as they phrased it, being out. I watch'd the 
pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I 
stood engag'd for them, having to pay sometimes 
near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This, 
and my being esteem' d a pretty good riggite, that 
is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my conse- 
quence in the society. My constant attendance (I 
never making a St. Monday) recommended me to 
the master ; and my uncommon quickness at com- 
posing occasioned my being put upon all work of 
dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I 
went on now very agreeably. 

My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I 

1 " A printing-house is always called a chapel by the workmen, 
the origin of which appears to have been, that printing was first 
carried on in England in an antient chapel converted into a print- 
ing-house, and the title has been preserved by tradition. The 
bien venu among the printers answers to the terms entrance and 
footing among mechanics ; thus a journeyman, on entering a 
printing-house, was accustomed to pay one or more gallons of 
beer for the good of the chapel : this custom was falling into dis- 
use thirty years ago; it is very properly rejected entirely in the 
United States."— W. T. F. 

56 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

found another in Duke-street, opposite to the Romish 
Chapel. It was two pair of stairs backwards, 
at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the 
house ; she had a daughter, and a maid servant, and 
a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but 
lodg'd abroad. After sending to inquire my char- 
acter at the house where I last lodg'd she agreed 
to take me in at the same rate, 3s. 6d. per week ; 
cheaper, as she said, from the protection she ex- 
pected in having a man lodge in the house. She 
was a widow, an elderly woman ; had been bred a 
Protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was 
converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, 
whose memory she much revered ; had lived much 
among people of distinction, and knew a thousand 
anecdotes of them as far back as the times of Charles 
the Second. She was lame in her knees with the 
gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, 
so sometimes wanted company ; and hers was so 
highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an 
evening with her whenever she desired it. Our 
supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very 
little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale 
between us ; but the entertainment was in her con- 
versation. My always keeping good hours, and 
giving little trouble in the family, made her unwill- 
ing to part with me ; so that, when I talk'd of a 
lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for two 
shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on 
saving money, made some difference, she bid me 
not think of it, for she would abate me two shil- 
lings a week for the future ; so I remained with her 
at one shilling and sixpence as long as I staid in 
London. 

In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady 
of seventy, in the most retired manner, of whom 
my landlady gave me this account : that she was a 
Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, 

57 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

and lodg'd in a nunnery with an intent of becoming 
a nun ; but, the country not agreeing with her, she 
returned to England, where, there being no nunnery, 
she had vow'd to lead the life of a nun, as near as 
might be done in those circumstances. Accord- 
ingly, she had given all her estate to charitable uses, 
reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and 
out of this sum she still gave a great deal in charity, 
living herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire 
but to boil it. She had lived many years in that 
garret, being permitted to remain there gratis by 
successive Catholic tentants of the house below, as 
they deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest 
visited her to confess her every day. " I have ask'd 
her," says my landlady, "how she, as she liv'd, 
could possibly find so much employment for a con- 
fessor ? " " Oh," said she, " it is impossible to avoid 
vain thoughts." I was permitted once to visit her. 
She was chearful and polite, and convers'd plea- 
santly. The room was clean, but had no other 
furniture than a matras, a table with a crucifix 
and book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and 
a picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica dis- 
playing her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure 
of Christ's bleeding face on it, which she explained 
to me with great seriousness. She look'd pale, but 
was never sick ; and I give it as another instance 
on how small an income, life and health may be 
supported. 

At Watts's printing-house I contracted an acquaint- 
ance with an ingenious young man, one Wygate, 
who, having wealthy relations, had been better 
educated than most printers ; was a tolerable Latin- 
ist, spoke French, and lov'd reading. I taught him 
and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the 
river, and they soon became good swimmers. They 
introduc'd me to some gentlemen from the country, 
who went to Chelsea by water to see the College 

58 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and Don Saltero's curiosities. In our return, at the 
request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate 
had excited, I stripped and leaped into the river, 
and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfryar's, per- 
forming on the way many feats of activity, both 
upon and under water, that surpris'd and pleas'd 
those to whom they were novelties. 

I had from a child been ever delighted with this 
exercise, had studied and practis'd all Thevenot's 
motions and positions, added some of my own, aim- 
ing at the graceful and easy as well as the useful. 
Ail these I took this occasion of exhibiting to the 
company, and was much flatter'd by their admira- 
tion ; and "Wygate, who was desirous of becoming 
a master, grew more and more attach'd to me on 
that account, as well as from the similarity of our 
studies. He at length proposed to me travelling all 
over Europe together, supporting ourselves every- 
where by working at our business. I was once 
inclined to it 5 but, mentioning it to my good friend 
Mr Denham, with whom I often spent an hour 
when I had leisure, he dissuaded me from it, advis- 
ing me to think only of returning to Pennsilvania, 
which he was now about to do. 

I must record one trait of this good man's char- 
acter. He had formerly been in business at Bristol, 
but failed in debt to a number of people, compounded 
and went to America. There, by a close applica- 
tion to business as a merchant, he acquir'd a plen- 
tiful fortune in a few years. Returning to England 
in the ship with me, he invited his old creditors to 
an entertainment, at which he thank' d them for the 
easy composition they had favored him with, and, 
when they expected nothing but the treat, every 
man at the first remove found under his plate an 
order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid 
remainder with interest. 

He now told me he was about to return to Phila- 

59 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

delphia, and should carry over a great quantity of 
goods in order to open a store there. He propos'd 
to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books, in 
which he would instruct me, copy his letters, and 
attend the store. He added, that, as soon as I 
should be acquainted with mercantile business, he 
would promote me by sending me with a cargo of 
flour and bread, etc., to the West Indies, and procure 
me commissions from others which would be profit- 
able ; and, if I manag'd well, would establish me 
handsomely. The thing pleas'd me ; for I was 
grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure 
the happy months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and 
wish'd again to see it ; therefore I immediately 
agreed on the terms of fifty pounds a year, Penn- 
sylvania money ; less, indeed, than my present 
gettings as a compositor, but affording a better 
prospect. 

I now took leave of printing, as I thought, for 
ever, and was daily employed in my new business, 
going about with Mr Denham among the tradesmen 
to purchase various articles, and seeing them pack'd 
up, doing errands, calling upon workmen to dis- 
patch, etc. ; and, when all was on board, I had a 
few days' leisure. On one of these days, I was, to 
my surprise, sent for by a great man I knew only 
by name, a Sir "William Wyndham, and I waited upon 
him. He had heard by some means or other of my 
swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriar's, and of my 
teaching Wygate and another young man to swim 
in a few hours. He had two sons, about to set out 
on their travels ; he wish'd to have them first taught 
swimming, and proposed to gratify me handsomely 
if I would teach them. They were not yet come 
to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I could not 
undertake it ; but, from this incident, I thought it 
likely that, if I were to remain in England and open 
a swimming-school, I might get a good deal of 

60 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

money 5 and it struck me so strongly, that, had the 
overture been sooner made me, probably I should 
not so soon have returned to America. After many 
years, you and I had something of more importance 
to do with one of these sons of Sir William Wynd- 
ham, become Earl of Egremont, which I shall men- 
tion in its place. 

Thus I spent about eighteen months in London ; 
most part of the time I work'd hard at my business, 
and spent but little upon myself except in seeing 
plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept 
me poor 5 he owed me about twenty-seven pounds, 
which I was now never likely to receive ; a great 
sum out of my small earnings ! I lov'd him, not- 
withstanding, for he had many amiable qualities. I 
had by no means improv'd my fortune ; but I had 
picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose 
conversation was of great advantage to me ; and I 
had read considerably. 

We sail'd from Gravesend on the 23rd of July, 
1726. For the incidents of the voyage, I refer you 
to my Journal, where you will find them all minutely 
related. Perhaps the most important part of that 
journal is the plan 1 to be found in it, which I 
formed at sea, for regulating my future conduct in 
life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed 
when I was so young, and yet being pretty faith- 
fully adhered to quite thro' to old age, 

We landed in Philadelphia on the nth of Oct- 
ber, where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no 
longer governor, being superseded by Major Gordon. 
I met him walking the streets as a common citizen. 
He seem'd a little asham'd at seeing me, but pass'd 
without saying any thing. I should have been as 
much asham'd at seeing Miss Read, had not her 
friends, despairing with reason of my return after 

1 The " Journal" was printed by Sparks, from a copy made at 
Reading in 1787. But it does not contain the Plan. — Ed. 

6l 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry 
another, one Rogers, a potter, which was done in 
my absence. With him, however, she was never 
happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit 
with him or bear his name, it being now said that 
he had another wife. He was a worthless fellow, 
tho' an excellent workman, which was the tempta- 
tion to her friends. He got into debt, ran away in 
1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died 
there. Keimer had got a better house, a shop well 
supply' d with stationery, plenty of new types, a 
number of hands, tho* none good, and seem'd to 
have a great deal of business. 

Mr Denham took a store in Water-street, where 
we open'd our goods ; I attended the business dili- 
gently, studied accounts, and grew, in a little time, 
expert at selling. We lodg'd and boarded together ; 
he counseled me as a father, having a sincere regard 
for me. I respected and loved him, and we might 
have gone on together very happy ; but, in the 
beginning of February, I72y, when I had just pass'd 
my twenty-first year, we both were taken ill. My 
distemper was a pleurisy, which very nearly carried 
me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up the point 
in my mind, and was rather disappointed when I 
found myself recovering, regretting, in some degree, 
that I must now, some time or other, have all that 
disagreeable work to do over again. I forget what 
his distemper was ; it held him a long time, and at 
length carried him off. He left me a small legacy 
in a nuncupative will, as a token of his kindness for 
me, and he left me once more to the wide world ; 
for the store was taken into the care of his executors, 
and my employment under him ended. 

My brother-in-law, Holmes, being now at Phila- 
delphia, advised my return to my business ; and 
Keimer tempted me, with an offer of large wages by 
the year, to come and take the management of his 

62 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

printing-house, that he might better attend his 
stationer's shop. I had heard a bad character of 
him in London from his wife and her friends, and 
was not fond of having any more to do with him. I 
tri'd for farther employment as a merchant's clerk ; 
but, not readily meeting with any, I clos'd again 
with Keimer. I found in his house these hands : 
Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pensilvanian, thirty years 
of age, bred to country work ; honest, sensible, had 
a great deal of solid observation, was something of a 
reader, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young 
countryman of full age, bred to the same, of un- 
common natural parts, and great wit and humour, 
but a little idle. These he had agreed with at 
extream low wages per week, to be rais'd a shilling 
every three months, as they would deserve by 
improving in their business ; and the expectation 
of these high wages, to come on hereafter, was what 
he had drawn them in with. Meredith was to work 
at press, Potts at book-binding, which he, by agree- 
ment, was to teach them, though he knew neither 

one nor t'other. John , a wild Irishman, brought 

up to no business, whose service, for four years, 
Keimer had purchased from the captain of a ship j 
he, too, was to be made a pressman. George Webb, 
an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had 
likewise bought, intending him for a compositor, of 
whom more presently j and David Harry, a country 
boy, whom he had taken apprentice. 

I soon perceiv'd that the intention of engaging me 
at wages so much higher than he had been us'd to 
give, was, to have these raw, cheap hands form'd 
thro' me ; and, as soon as I had instructed them, then 
they being all articled to him, he should be able to 
do without me. I went on, however, very cheer- 
fully, put his printing-house in order, which had 
been in great confusion, and brought his hands by 
degrees to mind their business and to do it better. 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in 
the situation of a bought servant. He was not more 
than eighteen years of age, and gave me this account 
of himself ; that he was born in Gloucester, educated 
at a grammar-school there, had been distinguish'd 
among the scholars for some apparent superiority in 
performing his part, when they exhibited plays ; 
belong'd to the Witty Club there, and had written 
some pieces. in prose and verse, which were printed 
in the Gloucester newspapers ; thence he was sent 
to Oxford ; where he continued about a year, but 
not well satisfi'd, wishing of all things to see London, 
and become a player. At length, receiving his 
quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of 
discharging his debts he walk'd out of town, hid his 
gown in a furze bush, and footed it to London, 
where, having no friends to advise him, he fell into 
bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no 
means of being introduc'd among the players, grew 
necessitous, pawn'd his cloaths, and wanted bread. 
Walking the street very hungry, and not knowing 
what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into 
his hand, offering immediate entertainment and en- 
couragement to such as would bind themselves to 
serve in America. He went directly, sign'd the 
indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, 
never writing a line to acquaint his friends what was 
become of him. He was lively, witty, good-natur'd, 
and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and 
imprudent to the last degree. 

John, the Irishman, soon ran away 5 with the rest 
I began to live very agreeably, for they all respected 
me the more, as they found Keimer incapable of in- 
structing them, and that from me they learned some- 
thing daily. We never worked on Saturday, that 
being Keimer' s Sabbath, so I had two days for reading. 
My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town 
increased. Keimer himself treated me with great 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

civility and apparent regard, and nothing now made 
me uneasy but my debt to Vernon, which I was yet 
unable to pay, being hitherto but a poor oeconomist. 
He, however, kindly made no demand of it. 

Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there 
was no letter-founder in America ; I had seen types 
cast at James's in London, but without much atten- 
tion to the manner ; however, I now contrived a 
mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, 
struck the matrices in lead, and thus supply'd in a 
pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engrav'd 
several things on occasion ; I made the ink • I was 
warehouseman, and everything, and, in short, quite 
a fac-totum. 

But, however serviceable I might be, I found that 
my services became every day of less importance, as 
the other hands improv'd in the business ; and, when 
Keimer paid my second quarter's wages, he let me 
know that he felt them too heavy, and thought I 
should make an abatement. He grew by degrees 
less civil, put on more of the master, frequently 
found fault, was captious, and seem'd ready for an 
outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good 
deal of patience, thinking that his encumber' d cir- 
cumstances were partly the cause. At length a trifle 
snapt our connections ; for, a great noise happening 
near the court-house, I put my head out of the 
window to see what was the matter. Keimer, being 
in the street, look'd up and saw me, call'd out to me 
in a loud voice and angry tone to mind my business, 
adding some reproachful words, that nettled me the 
more for their publicity, all the neighbors who 
were looking out on the same occasion being wit- 
nesses how I was treated. He came up immediately 
into the printing-house, continu'd the quarrel, high 
words pass'd on both sides, he gave me the quarter's 
warning we had stipulated, expressing a wish that 
he had not been oblig'd to so long a warning. I told 
e 6$ 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

him his wish was unnecessary, for I would leave him 
that instant ; and so, taking my hat, walk'd out of 
doors, desiring Meredith, whom I saw below, to 
take care of some things I left, and bring them to 
my lodgings. 

Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when 
we talked my affair over. He had conceiv'd a 
great regard for me, and was very unwilling that I 
should leave the house while he remain'd in it. He 
dissuaded me from returning to my native country, 
which I began to think of ; he reminded me that 
Keimer was in debt for all he possess'd ; that his 
creditors began to be uneasy ; that he kept his shop 
miserably, sold often without profit for ready money, 
and often trusted without keeping accounts ; that he 
must therefore fail, which would make a vacancy I 
might profit of. I objected my want of money. He 
then let me know that his father had a high opinion 
of me, and, from some discourse that had pass'd 
between them, he was sure would advance money 
to set us up, if I would enter into partnership with 
him. " My time," says he, " will be out with 
Keimer in the spring ; by that time we may have our 
press and types in from London. I am sensible I 
am no workman ; if you like it, your skill in the 
business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and 
we will share the profits equally." 

The proposal was agreeable, and I consented ; his 
father was in town and approv'd of it ; the more 
as he saw I had great influence with his son, had 
prevail'd on him to abstain long from dram-drinking, 
and he hop'd might break him off that wretched 
habit entirely, when we came to be so closely con- 
nected. I gave an inventory to the father, who 
carry'd it to a merchant •, the things were sent for, 
the secret was to be kept till they should arrive, 
and in the mean time I was to get work, if I 
could, at the other printing-house. But I found no 

66 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

vacancy there, and so remain'd idle a few days, 
when Keimer, on a prospect of being employ'd to 
print some paper money in New Jersey, which would 
require cuts and various types that I only could 
supply, and apprehending Bradford might engage 
me and get the job from him, sent me a very civil 
message, that old friends should not part for a few 
words, the effect of sudden passion, and wishing me 
to return. Meredith persuaded me to comply, as it 
would give more opportunity for his improvement 
under my daily instructions ; so I return'd, and we 
went on more smoothly than for some time before. 
The New Jersey jobb was obtain'd, I contriv'd a 
copperplate press for it, the first that had been seen 
in the country ; I cut several ornaments and checks 
for the bills. We went together to Burlington, 
where I executed the whole to satisfaction ; and 
he received so large a sum for the work as to be 
enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above 
water. 

At Burlington I made an acquaintance with many 
principal people of the province. Several of them 
had been appointed by the Assembly a committee 
to attend the press, and take care that no more 
bills were printed than the law directed. They 
were therefore, by turns, constantly with us, and 
generally he who attended, brought with him a 
friend or two for company. My mind having been 
much more improv'd by reading than Keimer's, I 
suppose it was for that reason my conversation 
seem'd to be more valu'd. They had me to their 
houses, introduced me to their friends, and show'd 
me much civility j while he, tho' the master, was 
a little neglected. In truth, he was an odd fish ; 
ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing 
receiv'd opinions, slovenly to extream dirtiness, 
enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little 
knavish withal. 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

We continu'd there near three months ; and by 
that time I could reckon among my acquired 
friends, Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary 
of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and 
several of the Smiths, members of Assembly, and 
Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter was 
a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he 
began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay 
for the brickmakers, learned to write after he was 
of age, carri'd the chain for surveyors, who taught 
him surveying, and he had now by his industry, 
acquir'd a good estate ; and says he, " I foresee 
that you will soon work this man out of his busi- 
ness, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He 
had not then the least intimation of my intention to 
set up there or anywhere. These friends were 
afterwards of great use to me, as I occasionally was 
to some of them. They all continued their regard 
for me as long as they lived. 

Before I enter upon my public appearance in 
business, it may be well to let you know the then 
state of my mind with regard to my principles and 
morals, that you may see how far those influenc'd 
the future events of my life. My parents had early 
given me religious impressions, and brought me 
through my childhood piously in the Dissenting 
way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting 
by turns of several points, as I found them disputed 
in the different books I read, I began to doubt 
of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism 
fell into my hands ; they were said to be the sub- 
stance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. 
It happened that they wrought an effect on me 
quite contrary to what was intended by them ; for 
the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to 
be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the 
refutations ; in short, I soon became a thorough 
Deist. My arguments perverted some others, 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

particularly Collins and Ralph ; but, each of them 
having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the 
least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct 
towards me (who was another freethinker), and my 
own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at 
times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that 
this doctrine, tho* it might be true, was not very 
useful. My London pamphlet, which had for its 
motto these lines of Dryden : 

*' Whatever is, is right. Though purblind man 
Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest link : 
His eyes not carrying to the equal beam, 
That poises all above ; " 

and from the attributes of God, his infinite wisdom, 
goodness and power, concluded that nothing could 
possibly be wrong in the world, and that vice and 
virtue were empty distinctions, no such things exist- 
ing, appear'd now not so clever a performance as I 
once thought it ; and I doubted whether some error 
had not insinuated itself unperceiv'd into my argu- 
ment, so as to infect all that follow' d, as is common 
in metaphysical reasonings. 

I grew convinc'd that truth, sincerity and integrity 
in dealings between man and man were of the 
utmost importance to the felicity of life ; and I 
form'd written resolutions, which still remain in my 
journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. 
Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such ; 
but I entertain'd an opinion that, though certain 
actions might not be bad because they were for- 
bidden by it, or good because it commanded them, 
yet probably these actions might be forbidden 
because they were bad for us, or commanded 
because they were beneficial to us, in their own 
natures, all the circumstances of things considered. 
And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Provi- 
dence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favor- 
able circumstances and situations, or all together, 

6 9 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

preserved me, thro' this dangerous time of youth, 
and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in 
among strangers, remote from the eye and advice 
of my father, without any willful gross immorality 
or injustice, that might have been expected from 
my want of religion. I say willful, because the in- 
stances I have mentioned had something of necessity 
in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the 
knavery of others. I had therefore a tolerable 
character to begin the world with ; I valued it 
properly, and determin'd to preserve it. 

We had not been long return' d to Philadelphia 
before the new types arriv'd from London. We 
settled with Keimer, and left him by his consent 
before he heard of it. We found a house to hire 
near the market, and took it. To lessen the rent, 
which was then but twenty-four pounds a year, 
tho* I have since known it to let for seventy, we 
took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, 
who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and 
we to board with them. We had scarce opened our 
letters and put our press in order, before George 
House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a country- 
man to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring 
for a printer. All our cash was now expended in 
the variety of particulars we had been obliged to 
procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being 
our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me 
more pleasure than any crown I have since earned ; 
and the gratitude I felt toward House has made me 
often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise 
have been to assist young beginners. 

There are croakers in every country, always bod- 
ing its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia ; 
a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look 
and a very grave manner of speaking ; his name 
was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger 
to me, stopt one day at my door, and asked me 

7o 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

if I was the young man who had lately opened a 
new printing-house. Being answered in the affirm- 
ative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was 
an expensive undertaking, and the expense would 
be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the 
people already half-bankrupts, or near being so; 
all appearances to the contrary, such as new build- 
ings and the rise of rents, being to his certain 
knowledge fallacious ; for they were, in fact, 
among the things that would soon ruin us. And 
he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now 
existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left 
me half melancholy. Had I known him before I 
engaged in this business, probably I never should 
have done it. This man continued to live in 
this decaying place, and to declaim in the same 
strain, refusing for many years to buy a house 
there, because all was going to destruction ; and 
at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five 
times as much for one as he might have bought 
it for when he first began his croaking. 

I should have mentioned before, that, in the 
autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most 
of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of 
mutual improvement, which we called the Junto ; 
we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I 
drew up required that every member, in his 
turn, should produce one or more queries on 
any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philo- 
sophy, to be discuss'd by the company ; and once 
in three months produce and read an essay of 
his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our 
debates were to be under the direction of a 
president, and to be conducted in the sincere 
spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for 
dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent 
warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, 
or direct contradiction, were after some time made 

71 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary 
penalties. 

The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copyer 
of deeds for the scriveners, a good-natur'd, friendly, 
middle-ag'd man, a great lover of poetry, reading 
all he could meet with, and writing some that was 
tolerable ; very ingenious in many little Nicknack- 
eries, and of sensible conversation. 

Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, 
great in his way, and afterwards inventor of what 
is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew 
little out of his way, and was not a pleasing com- 
panion ; as, like most great mathematicians I have 
met with, he expected universal precision in every- 
thing said, or was for ever denying or distinguishing 
upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. 
He soon left us. 

Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, afterwards surveyor- 
general, who lov'd books, and sometimes made a 
few verses. 

William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but, loving 
reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathe- 
matics, which he first studied with a view to astro- 
logy, that he afterwards laught at it. He also 
became surveyor-general. 

William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite 
mechanic, and a solid, sensible man. 

Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb 
I have characteriz'd before. 

Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, 
generous, lively, and witty j a lover of punning and 
of his friends. 

And William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, 
about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, 
the best heart, and the exactest morals of almost 
any man I ever met with. He became afterwards 
a merchant of great note, and one of our provincial 
judges. Our friendship continued without interrup- 

72 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tion to his death, upwards of forty years ; and the 
club continued almost as long, and was the best 
school of philosophy, morality, and politics that 
then existed in the province ; for our queries, 
which were read the week preceding their dis- 
cussion, put us upon reading with attention upon 
the several subjects, that we might speak more 
to the purpose ; and here, too, we acquired better 
habits of conversation, every thing being studied 
in our rules which might prevent our disgusting 
each other. From hence the long continuance of 
the club, which I shall have frequent occasion to 
speak further of hereafter. 

But my giving this account of it here is to show 
something of the interest I had, every one of these 
exerting themselves in recommending business to us. 
Breintnal particularly procur'd us from the Quakers 
the printing forty sheets of their history, the rest 
being to be done by Keimer ; and upon this we 
work'd exceedingly hard, for the price was low. It 
was a folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long primer 
notes. I compos'd of it a sheet a day, and Meredith 
worked it off at press ; it was often eleven at night, 
and sometimes later, before I had finished my dis- 
tribution for the next day's work, for the little jobbs 
sent in by our other friends now and then put us 
back. But so determin'd I was to continue doing 
a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, when, 
having impos'd my forms, I thought my day's work 
over, one of them by accident was broken, and two 
pages reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and 
compos'd it over again before I went to bed ; and 
this industry, visible to our neighbors, began to give 
us character and credit; particularly, I was told, 
that mention being made of the new printing-office 
at the merchants' Every-night club, the general 
opinion was that it must fail, there being already 
two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford ; 

73 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

but Dr Baird (whom you and I saw many years after 
at his native place, St. Andrew's in Scotland) gave 
a contrary opinion : " For the industry of that 
Franklin," says he, "is superior to any thing I 
ever saw of the kind ; I see him still at work 
when I go home from club, and he is at work 
again before his neighbors are out of bed." This 
struck the rest, and we soon after had offers 
from one of them to supply us with stationery ; but 
as yet we did not chuse to engage in shop business. 

I mention this industry the more particularly and 
the more freely, tho' it seems to be talking in my 
own praise, that those of my posterity, who shall 
read it, may know the use of that virtue, when they 
see its effects in my favour throughout this relation. 

George "Webb, who had found a female friend 
that lent him wherewith to purchase his time of 
Keimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman 
to us. We could not then employ him ; but I fool- 
ishly let him know as a secret that I soon intended 
to begin a newspaper, and might then have work 
for him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were 
founded on this, that the then only newspaper, 
printed by Bradford, was a paltry thing, wretchedly 
manag'd, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable 
to him ; I therefore thought a good paper would 
scarcely fail of good encouragement. I requested 
Webb not to mention it; but he told it to Keimer, 
who immediately, to be beforehand with me, pub- 
lished proposals for printing one himself, on which 
Webb was to be employ'd. I resented this ; and, to 
counteract them, as I could not yet begin our paper, 
I wrote several pieces of entertainment for Bradford's 
paper, under the title of the Bust Body, which 
Breintnal continu'd some months. By this means 
the attention of the publick was fixed on that paper, 
and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesqu'd and 
ridicul'd, were disregarded. He began his paper, 

74 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

however, and, after carrying it on three quarters of 
a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he 
offered it to me for a trifle ; and I, having been 
ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand 
directly ; and it prov'd in a few years extremely 
profitable to me. 

I perceive that I am apt to speak in the singular 
number, though our partnership still continu'd ; the 
reason may be that, in fact, the whole management 
of the business lay upon me. Meredith was no 
compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. 
My friends lamented my connection with him, but I 
was to make the best of it. 

Our first papers made a quite different appearance 
from any before in the province ; a better type, and 
better printed; but some spirited remarks of my 
writing, on the dispute then going on between 
Governor Burnet and the Massachussets Assembly, 
struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and 
the manager of it to be much talk'd of, and in a 
few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers. 

Their example was followed by many, and our 
number went on growing continually. This was 
one of the first good effects of my having learnt a 
little to scribble ; another was, that the leading men, 
seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who 
could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to 
oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the 
votes, and laws, and other publick business. He had 
printed an address of the House to the governor, in a 
coarse, blundering manner, we reprinted it elegantly 
and correctly, and sent one to every member. They 
were sensible of the difference : it strengthened the 
hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us 
their printers for the year ensuing. 

Among my friends in the House I must not forget 
Mr Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then 
returned from England, and had a seat in it. He 

75 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

interested himself for me strongly in that instance, 
as he did in many others afterward, continuing his 
patronage till his death. 1 

Mr Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of 
the debt I ow'd him, but did not press me. I wrote 
him an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, crav'd 
his forbearance a little longer, which he allow'd me, 
and as soon as I was able, I paid the principal with 
interest, and many thanks ; so that erratum was in 
some degree corrected. 

But now another difficulty came upon me which I 
had never the least reason to expect. Mr Meredith's 
father, who was to have paid for our printing-house, 
according to the expectations given me, was able to 
advance only one hundred pounds currency, which 
had been paid ; and a hundred more was due to the 
merchant, who grew impatient, and su'd us all. 
We gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not 
be rais'd in time, the suit must soon come to a 
judgment and execution, and our hopeful prospects 
must, with us, be ruined, as the press and letters 
must be sold for payment, perhaps at half price. 

In this distress two true friends, whose kindness 
I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while 
I can remember any thing, came to me separately, 
unknown to each other, and, without any application 
from me, offering each of them to advance me all 
the money that should be necessary to enable me to 
take the whole business upon myself, if that should 
be practicable ; but they did not like my continuing 
the partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, 
was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at 
low games in alehouses, much to our discredit. 
These two friends were William Coleman and 
Robert Grace. I told them I could not propose a 
separation while any prospect remain'd of the Mere- 
dith's fulfilling their part of our agreement, because 

1 I got his son once £500 [marg. note], 

76 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I thought myself under great obligations to them 
for what they had done, and would do if they 
could ; but, if they finally fail'd in their perform- 
ance, and our partnership must be dissolv'd, I should 
then think myself at liberty to accept the assistance 
of my friends. 

Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said 
to my partner, "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied 
at the part you have Undertaken in this affair of 
ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me 
what he would for you alone. If that is the case, 
tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go 
about my business." " No," said he, " my father 
has really been disappointed, and is really unable ; 
and I am unwilling to distress him farther. I see 
this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a 
farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, 
and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice 
to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people 
are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is 
cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and follow 
my old employment. You may find friends to 
assist you. If you will take the debts of the com- 
pany upon you ; return to my father the hundred 
pound he has advanced ; pay my little personal 
debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, 
I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the 
whole in your hands." I agreed to this proposal : 
it was drawn up in writing, sign'd, and seal'd imme- 
diately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went 
soon after to Carolina, from whence he sent me next 
year two long letters, containing the best account 
that had been given of that country, the climate, the 
soil, husbandry, etc., for in those matters he was 
very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and 
they gave great satisfaction to the publick. 

As soon as he was gone, I recurr'd to my two 
friends ; and because I would not give an unkind 

77 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

preference to either, I took half of what each had 
offered and I wanted of one, and half of the other ; 
paid off the company's debts, and went on with the 
business in my own name, advertising that the 
partnership was dissolved. I think this was in or 
about the year 1729. 

About this time there was a cry among the people 
for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds 
being extant in the province, and that soon to be 
sunk. The wealthy inhabitants oppos'd any addi- 
tion, being against all paper currency, from an appre- 
hension that it would depreciate, as it had done in 
New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We 
had discuss'd this point in our Junto, where I was on 
the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first 
small sum struck in 1723 had done much good by 
increasing the trade, employment, and number of 
inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the 
old houses inhabited, and many new ones building : 
whereas I remembered well, that when I first walk'd 
about the streets of Philadelphia, eating my roll, I 
saw most of the houses in Walnut Street, between 
Second and Front streets, with bills on their doors, 
" To be let " ; and many likewise in Chestnut-street 
and other streets, which made me then think the 
inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after 
another. 

Our debates possess'd me so fully of the subject, 
that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on 
it, entitled u The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Cur- 
rency." It was well receiv'd by the common people 
in general ; but the rich men dislik'd it, for it 
increas'd and strengthen'd the clamor for more 
money, and they happening to have no writers 
among them that were able to answer it, their 
opposition slacken'd, and the point was carried by a 
majority in the House. My friends there, who con- 
ceiv'd I had been of some service, thought fit to 

78 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

reward me by employing me in printing the money ; 
a very profitable jobb and a great help to me. This 
was another advantage gain'd by my being able to 
write. 

The utility of this currency became by time and 
experience so evident as never afterwards to be much 
disputed ; so that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand 
pounds, and in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds, 
since which it arose during war to upwards of three 
hundred and fifty thousand pounds, trade, building, 
and inhabitants all the while increasing, tho' I now 
think there are limits beyond which the quantity 
may be hurtful. 

I soon after obtain'd, thro* my friend Hamilton, 
the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another 
profitable jobb as I then thought it 5 small things 
appearing great to those in small circumstances j 
and these, to me, were really great advantages, as 
they were great encouragements. He procured for 
me, also, the printing of the laws and votes of that 
government, which continu'd in my hands as long as 
I follow'd the business. 

I now open'd a little stationer's shop. I had in it 
blanks of all sorts, the correctest that ever appear'd 
among us, being assisted in that by my friend 
Breintnal. I had also paper, parchment, chapmen's 
books, etc. One Whitemash, a compositor I had 
known in London, an excellent workman, now came 
to me, and work'd with me constantly and diligently j 
and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. 

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was 
under for the printing-house. In order to secure 
my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care 
not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but 
to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest 
plainly ; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. 
I never went out a fishing or shooting ; a book, 
indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but 

79 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal ; and, 
to show that I was not above my business, I some- 
times brought home the paper I purchas'd at the 
stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus 
being esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, 
and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants 
who imported stationery solicited my custom ; others 
proposed supplying me with books, and I went on 
swimmingly. In the mean time, Keimer's credit and 
business declining daily, he was at last forc'd to 
sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He 
went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in 
very poor circumstances. 

His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had in- 
structed while I work'd with him, set up in his 
place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials. 
I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in 
Harry, as his friends were very able, and had a good 
deal of interest. I therefore propos'd a partnership 
to him, which he, fortunately for me, rejected with 
scorn. He was very proud, dress'd like a gentle- 
man, liv'd expensively, took much diversion and 
pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his 
business ; upon which, all business left him ; and, 
finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Bar- 
badoes, taking the printing-house with him. There 
this apprentice employ'd his former master as a 
journeyman ; they quarrel'd often ; Harry went con- 
tinually behindhand, and at length was forc'd to sell 
his types and return to his country work in Pensil- 
vania. The person that bought them employ'd 
Keimer to use them, but in a few years he died. 

There remained now no competitor with me at 
Philadelphia but the old one, Bradford ; who was 
rich and easy, did a little printing now and then by 
straggling hands, but was not very anxious about 
the business. However, as he kept the post-office, 
it was imagined he had better opportunities of ob- 

80 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

taining news ; his paper was thought a better dis- 
tributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore 
had many more, which was a profitable thing to 
him, and a disadvantage to me ; for, tho* I did 
indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the 
publick opinion was otherwise, for what I did send 
was by bribing the riders, who took them privately, 
Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it, which 
occasion' d some resentment on my part ; and I 
thought so meanly of him for it, that, when I 
afterward came into his situation, I took care never 
to imitate it. 

I had hitherto continu'd to board with Godfrey, 
who lived in part of my house with his wife and 
children, and had one side of the shop for his 
glazier's business, tho' he worked little, being 
always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs Godfrey 
projected a match for me with a relation's daughter, 
took opportunities of bringing us often together, till 
a serious courtship on my part ensu'd, the girl being 
in herself very deserving. The old folks encourag'd 
me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving 
us together, till at length it was time to explain. 
Mrs Godfrey manag'd our little treaty. I let her 
know that I expected as much money with their 
daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for 
the printing-house, which I believe was not then 
above a hundred pounds. She brought me word 
they had no such sum to spare ; I said they might 
mortgage their house in the loan-office. The answer 
to this, after some days, was, that they did not 
approve the match ; that, on inquiry of Bradford, 
they had been informed the printing business was 
not a profitable one ; the types would soon be worn 
out, and more wanted ; that S. Keimer and D. 
Harry had failed one after the other, and I should 
probably soon follow them ; and, therefore, I was 
forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. 
f 81 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Whether this was a real change of sentiment or 
only artifice, on a supposition of our being too far 
engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that 
we should steal a marriage, which would leave them 
at liberty to give or withhold what they pleas'd, I 
know not; but I suspected the latter, resented it, 
and went no more. Mrs Godfrey brought me 
afterward some more favorable accounts of their 
disposition, and would have drawn me on again ; 
but I declared absolutelv my resolution to have 
nothing more to do with that family. This was 
resented by the Godfreys ; we differ'd, and they 
removed, leaving me the whole house, and I re- 
resolved to take no more inmates. 

But this affair having turned my thoughts to 
marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures 
of acquaintance in other places ; but soon found 
that, the business of a printer being generally 
thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with 
a wife, unless with such a one as I should not 
otherwise think agreeable. In the mean time, that 
hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried me 
frequently into intrigues with low women that fell 
in my way, which were attended with some expense 
and great inconvenience, besides a continual risque 
to my health by a distemper which of all things I 
dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it. 
A friendly correspondence as neighbors and old 
acquaintances had continued between me and Mrs 
Read's family, who all had a regard for me from 
the time of my first lodging in their house. I was 
often invited there and consulted in their affairs, 
wherein I sometimes was of service. I piti'd poor 
Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was gener- 
ally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided com- 
pany. I considered my giddiness and inconstancy 
when in London as in a great degree the cause of 
her unhappiness, tho* the mother was good enough 

82 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to think the fault more her own than mine, as she 
had prevented our marrying before I went thither, 
and persuaded the other match in my absence. Our 
mutual affection was revived, but there were now 
great objections to our union. The match was 
indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife 
being said to be living in England ; but this could 
not easily be prov'd, because of the distance ; and, 
tho' there was a report of his death, it was not 
certain. Then, tho' it should be true, he had left 
many debts, which his successor might be call'd 
upon to pay. "We ventured, however, over all 
these difficulties, and I took her to wife, September 
1st, 1730* None of the inconveniences happened 
that we had apprehended ; she proved a good and 
faithful helpmate, assisted me much by attending 
the shop ; we throve together, and have ever mutu- 
ally endeavor' d to make each other happy. Thus I 
corrected that great erratum as well as I could. 

About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, 
but in a little room of Mr Grace's, set apart for that 
purpose, a proposition was made by me, that, since 
our books were often referr'd to in our disquisitions 
upon the queries, it might be convenient to us to 
have them altogether where we met, that upon oc- 
casion they might be consulted ; and by thus club- 
bing our books to a common library, we should, 
while we lik'd to keep them together, have each of 
us the advantage of using the books of all the other 
members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if 
each owned the whole. It was lik'd and agreed 
to, and we fill'd one end of the room with such 
books as we could best spare. The number was 
not so great as we expected; and tho' they had 
been of great use, yet some inconveniences occur- 
ring for want of due care of them, the collection, 
after about a year, was separated, and each took his 
books home again. 

«3 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

And now I set on foot my first project of a public 
nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up 
the proposals, got them put into form by our great 
scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends 
in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shil- 
lings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for 
fifty years, the term our company was to continue. 
We afterwards obtain'd a charter, the company 
being increased to one hundred : this was the 
mother of all the North American subscription 
libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great 
thing itself, and continually increasing. These 
libraries have improved the general conversation 
of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and 
farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other 
countries, and perhaps have contributed in some 
degree to the stand so generally made throughout 
the colonies in defence of their privileges. 

Mem ,. Thus far was written with the intention 
express d in the beginning and therefore contains 
several little family anecdotes of no importance to 
others. What follows was written many years after 
in compliance with the advice contain'd in these 
letters, and accordingly intended for the public. 
The affairs of the Revolution occasion'd the inter- 
ruption. 



84 



Letter from Mr Abel James, with Notes of my Life 
(received in Paris). 

" My Dear and Honored Friend : I have often 
been desirous of writing to thee, but could not be 
reconciled to the thought, that the letter might fall 
into the hands of the British, lest some printer or 
busy-body should publish some part of the contents, 
and give our friend pain, and myself censure. 

" Some time since .there fell into my hands, to 
my great joy, about twenty-three sheets in thy own 
handwriting, containing an account of the parentage 
and life of thyself, directed to thy son, ending in the 
year 1 7 go, with which there were notes, likewise in 
thy writing j a copy of which I inclose, in hopes it 
may be a means, if thou continued it up to a later 
period, that the first and latter part may be put 
together j and if it is not yet continued, I hope thee 
will not delay it. Life is uncertain, as the preacher 
tells us ; and what will the world say if kind, 
humane, and benevolent Ben. Franklin should leave 
his friends and the world deprived of so pleasing 
and profitable a work ; a work which would be 
useful and entertaining not only to a few, but to 
millions ? The influence writings under that class 
have on the minds of youth is very great, and has 
nowhere appeared to me so plain, as in our public 
friend's journals. It almost insensibly leads the 
youth into the resolution of endeavoring to become 
as good and eminent as the journalist. Should 
thine, for instance, when published (and I think it 
could not fail of it), lead the youth to equal the in- 
dustry and temperance of thy early youth, what a 

85 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

blessing with that class would such a work be ! I 
know of no character living, nor many of them put 
together, who has so much in his power as thyself 
to promote a greater spirit of industry and early 
attention to business, frugality, and temperance with 
the American youth. Not that I think the work 
would have no other merit and use in the world, far 
from it ; but the first is of such vast importance that 
I know nothing that can equal it." 

The foregoing letter and the minutes accompany- 
ing it being shown to a friend, I received from him 
the following : 

Letter from Mr Benjamin Vaughan. 

"PARIS, January 31, 1783. 

" My Dearest Sir : When I had read over your 
sheets of minutes of the principal incidents of your 
life, recovered for you by your Quaker acquaintance, 
I told you I would send you a letter expressing my 
reasons why I thought it would be useful to com- 
plete and publish it as he desired. Various con- 
cerns have for some time past prevented this letter 
being written, and I do not know whether it was 
worth any expectation ; happening to be at leisure, 
however, at present, I shall by writing, at least in- 
terest and instruct myself; but as the terms I am 
inclined to use may tend to offend a person of your 
manners, I shall only tell you how I would address 
any other person, who was as good and as great as 
yourself, but less diffident. I would say to him, Sir, 
I solicit the history of your life from the following 
motives : Your history is so remarkable, that if you 
do not give it, somebody else will certainly give it ; 
and perhaps so as nearly to do as much harm, as 
your own management of the thing might do good. 
It will moreover present a table of the internal 

86 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

circumstances of your country, which will very 
much tend to invite to it settlers of virtuous and 
manly minds. And considering the eagerness with 
which such information is sought by them, and the 
extent of your reputation, I do not know of a more 
efficacious advertisement than your biography would 
give, All that has happened to you is also con- 
nected with the detail of the manners and situation 
of a rising people ; and in this respect I do not 
think that the writings of Csesar and Tacitus can be 
more interesting to a true judge of human nature 
and society. But these, sir, are small reasons, in 
my opinion, compared with the chance which your 
life will give for the forming of future great men ; 
and in conjunction with your Art of Virtue (which 
you design to publish) of improving the features of 
private character, and consequently of aiding all 
happiness, both public and domestic. The two 
works I allude to, sir, will in particular give a noble 
rule and example of self-education. School and 
other education constantly proceed upon false prin- 
ciples, and show a clumsy apparatus pointed at a 
false mark ; but your apparatus is simple, and the 
mark, a true one; and while parents and young 
persons are left destitute of other just means of 
estimating and becoming prepared for a reasonable 
course in life, your discovery that the thing is in 
many a man's private power, will be invaluable ! 
Influence upon the private character, late in life, 
is not only an influence late in life, but a weak in- 
fluence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits 
and prejudices ; it is in youth that we take our party, 
as to profession, pursuits and matrimony. In youth, 
therefore, the turn is given ; in youth the education 
even of the next generation is given ; in youth the 
private and public character is determined ; and the 
term of life extending but from youth to age, life 
ought to begin well from youth, and more especially 

8 7 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

before we take our party as to our principal objects. 
But your biography will not merely teach self- 
education, but the education of a wise man ; and 
the wisest man will receive lights and improve his 
progress, by seeing detailed the conduct of another 
wise man. And why are weaker men to be de- 
prived of such helps, when we see our race has 
been blundering on in the dark, almost without a 
guide in this particular, from the farthest trace of 
time ? Show then, sir, how much is to be done, 
both to sons and fathers ; and invite all wise men to 
become like yourself, and other men to become wise. 
When we see how cruel statesmen and warriors can 
be to the human race, and how absurd distinguished 
men can be to their acquaintance, it will be in- 
structive to observe the instances multiply of pacific, 
acquiescing manners ; and to find how compatible 
it is to be great and domestic, enviable and yet good- 
numored. 

" The little private incidents which you will also 
have to relate, will have considerable use, as we 
want, above all things, rules of prudence in ordinary 
affairs ; and it will be curious to see how you have 
acted in these. It will be so far a sort of key to 
life, and explain many things that all men ought to 
have once explained to them, to give them a chance 
of becoming wise by foresight. The nearest thing 
to having experience of one's own, is to have other 
people's affairs brought before us in a shape that is 
interesting ; this is sure to happen from your pen ; 
our affairs and management will have an air of sim- 
plicity or importance that will not fail to strike ; and 
I am convinced you have conducted them with 
as much originality as if you had been conducting 
discussions in politics or philosophy ; and what 
more worthy of experiments and system (its im- 
portance and its errors considered) than human 
life ? 

88 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

" Some men have been virtuous blindly, others 
have speculated fantastically, and others have been 
shrewd to bad purposes ; but you, sir, I am sure, 
will give under your hand, nothing but what is at 
the same moment, wise, practical and good. Your 
account of yourself (for I suppose the parallel I am 
drawing for Dr Franklin, will hold not only in point 
of character, but of private history) will show that 
you are ashamed of no origin ; a thing the more 
important, as you prove how little necessary all 
origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness. As no 
end likewise happens without a means, so we shall 
find, sir, that even you yourself framed a plan by 
which you became considerable ; but at the same 
time we may see that though the event is flattering, 
the means are as simple as wisdom could make 
them ; that is, depending upon nature, virtue, 
thought and habit. Another thing demonstrated 
will be the propriety of every man's waiting for his 
time for appearing upon the stage of the world. 
Our sensations being very much fixed to the moment, 
we are apt to forget that more moments are to 
follow the first, and consequently that man should 
arrange his conduct so as to suit the whole of a life. 
Your attribution appears to have been applied to 
your life, and the passing moments of it have been 
enlivened with content and enjoyment, instead of 
being tormented with foolish impatience or regrets. 
Such a conduct is easy for those who make virtue 
and themselves in countenance by examples of 
other truly great men, of whom patience is so 
often the characteristic. Your Quaker corres- 
pondent, sir (for here again I will suppose the 
subject of my letter resembling Dr Franklin), 
praised your frugality, diligence and temperance, 
which he considered as a pattern for all youth ; but 
it is singular that he should have forgotten your 
modesty and your disinterestedness, without which 

8 9 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

you never could have waited for your advancement, 
or found your situation in the mean time comfort- 
able ; which is a strong lesson to show the poverty 
of glory and the importance of regulating our minds. 
If this correspondent had known the nature of your 
reputation as well as I do, he would have said, 
Your former writings and measures would secure 
attention to your Biography, and Art of Virtue ; 
and your Biography and Art of Virtue, in return, 
would secure attention to them. This is an ad- 
vantage attendant upon a various character, and 
which brings all that belongs to it into greater play ; 
and it is the more useful, as perhaps more persons 
are at a loss for the means of improving their minds 
and characters, than they are for the time or the 
inclination to do it. But there is one concluding 
reflection, sir, that will shew the use of your life as 
a mere piece of biography. This style of writing 
seems a little gone out of vogue, and yet it is a 
very useful one ; and your specimen of it may be 
particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of 
comparison with the lives of various public cut- 
throats and intriguers, and with absurd monastic 
self-tormentors or vain literary triflers. If it en- 
courages more writings of the same kind with your 
own, and induces more men to spend lives fit to be 
written, it will be worth all Plutarch's Lives put to- 
gether. But being tired of figuring to myself a 
character of which every feature suits only one man 
in the world, without giving him the praise of it, I 
shall end my letter, my dear Dr Franklin, with a 
personal application to your proper self. I am 
earnestly desirous, then, my dear sir, that you 
should let the world into the traits of your genuine 
character, as civil broils may otherwise tend to dis- 
guise or traduce it. Considering your great age, 
the caution of your character, and your peculiar 
6tyle of thinking, it is not likely that any one be- 

9° 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sides yourself can be sufficiently master of the facts 
of your life, or the intentions of your mind. Be- 
sides all this, the immense revolution of the present 
period, will necessarily turn our attention towards 
the author of it, and when virtuous principles have 
been pretended in it, it will be highly important to 
shew that such have really influenced ; and, as your 
own character will be the principal one to receive a 
scrutiny, it is proper (even for its effects upon your 
vast and rising country, as well as upon England 
and upon Europe) that it should stand respectable 
and eternal. For the furtherance of human happi- 
ness, I have always maintained that it is necessary 
to prove that man is not even at present a vicious 
and detestable animal ; and still more to prove that 
good management may greatly amend him; and it 
is for much the same reason, that I am anxious to 
see the opinion established, that there are fair 
characters existing among the individuals of the 
race ; for the moment that all men, without ex- 
ception, shall be conceived abandoned, good people 
will cease efforts deemed to be hopeless, and perhaps 
think of taking their share in the scramble of life, 
or at least of making it comfortable principally for 
themselves. Take then, my dear sir, this work 
most speedily into hand : shew yourself good as 
you are good ; temperate as you are temperate ; and 
above all things, prove yourself as one, who from 
your infancy have loved justice, liberty and concord, 
in a way that has made it natural and consistent for 
you to have acted, as we have seen you act in the 
last seventeen years of your life. Let Englishmen 
be made not only to respect, but even to love you. 
When they think well of individuals in your native 
country, they will go nearer to thinking well of 
your country ; and when your countrymen see them- 
selves well thought of by Englishmen, they will go 
nearer to thinking well of England. Extend your 

91 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

views even further; do not stop at those who speak 
the English tongue, but after having settled so many 
points in nature and politics, think of bettering the 
whole race of men. As I have not read any part 
of the life in question, but know only the character 
that lived it, I write somewhat at hazard. I am 
sure, however, that the life and the treatise I allude 
to (on the Art of Virtue) will necessarily fulfil the 
chief of my expectations ; and still more so if you 
take up the measure of suiting these performances to 
the several views above stated. Should they even 
prove unsuccessful in all that a sanguine admirer of 
yours hopes from them, you will at least have framed 
pieces to interest the human mind ; and whoever 
gives a feeling of pleasure that is innocent to man, 
has added so much to the fair side of a life otherwise 
too much darkened by anxiety and too much injured 
by pain. In the hope, therefore, that you will listen 
to the prayer addressed to you in this letter, I beg 
to subscribe myself, my dearest sir, etc., etc., 

" Signed, Benj. Vaughan." 



Continuation of the Account of my Life, begun at 
Passy, near Paris, 1 784. 

It is some time since I receiv'd the above letters, 
but I have been too busy till now to think of com- 
plying with the request they contain. It might, too, 
be much better done if I were at home among my 
papers, which would aid my memory, and help to 
ascertain dates ; but my return being uncertain, and 
having just now a little leisure, I will endeavor to 
recollect and write what I can ; if I live to get home, 
it may there be corrected and improv'd. 

Not having any copy here of what is already 
written, I know not whether an account is given of 

92 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the means I used to establish the Philadelphia public 
library, which, from a small beginning, is now 
become so considerable, though I remember to have 
come down to near the time of that transaction 
(1730). I will therefore begin here with an account 
of it, which may be struck out if found to have been 
already given. 

At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania, 
there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the 
colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York 
and Philad'a the printers were indeed stationers ; 
they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a 
few common school-books. Those who lov'd read- 
ing were oblig'd to send for their books from 
England ; the members of the Junto had each a few. 
"We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and 
hired a room to hold our club in. I propos'd that 
we should all of us bring our books to that room, 
where they would not only be ready to consult in 
our conferences, but become a common benefit, each 
of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wish'd 
to read at home. This was accordingly done, and 
for some time contented us. , 

Finding the advantage of this little collection, I 
propos'd to render the benefit from books more 
common, by commencing a public subscription 
library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that 
would be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, 
Mr Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of 
articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which 
each subscriber engag'd to pay a certain sum down 
for the first purchase of books, and an annual con- 
tribution for increasing them. So few were the 
readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority 
of us so poor, that I was not able, with great 
industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly 
young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this 
purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per 

93 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

annum. On this little fund we began. The books 
were imported ; the library was opened one day in 
the week for lending to the subscribers, on their 
promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly 
returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, 
was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. 
The libraries were augmented by donations ; read- 
ing became fashionable ; and our people, having no 
publick amusements to divert their attention from 
study, became better acquainted with books, and in 
a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better 
instructed and more intelligent than people of the 
same rank generally are in other countries. 

When we were about to sign the above-mentioned 
articles, which were to be binding on us, our heirs, 
etc., for fifty years, Mr Brockden, the scrivener, 
said to us, " You are young men, but it is scarcely 
probable that any of you will live to see the expira- 
tion of the term fix'd in the instrument." A number 
of us, however, are yet living ; but the instrument 
was after a few years rendered null by a charter that 
incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company. 

The objections and reluctances I met with in 
soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the 
impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer 
of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to 
raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above 
that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their 
assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore 
put myself as much as I could out of sight, and 
stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had 
requested me to go about and propose it to such as 
they thought lovers of reading. In this way my 
affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after 
practis'd it on such occasions ; and, from my 
frequent successes, can heartily recommend it. The 
present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards 
be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain 

94 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain 
than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and 
then even envy will be disposed to do you justice 
by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring 
them to their right owner. 

This library afforded me the means of improve- 
ment by constant study, for which I set apart an 
hour or two each day, and thus repair'd in some 
degree the loss of the learned education my father 
once intended for me. Reading was the only 
amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in 
taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind ; and my 
industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as 
it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing- 
house ; I had a young family coming on to be 
educated, and I had to contend with for business two 
printers, who were established in the place before 
me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. 
My original habits of frugality continuing, and my 
father having, among his instructions to me when a 
boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, 
" Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall 
stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean 
men," I from thence considered industry as a means 
of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag'd 
me, tho' I did not think that I should ever literally 
stand before kin^s, which, however, has since hap- 
pened ; for I have stood before five, and even had 
the honour of sitting down with one, the King of 
Denmark, to dinner. 

We have an English proverb that says, " He that 
would thrive, must ask his wife." It was lucky for 
me that I had one as much dispos'd to industry and 
frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in 
my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tend- 
ing shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper- 
makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our 
table was plain and simple, our furniture of the 

95 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long 
time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a 
twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. 
But mark how luxury will enter families, and make 
a progress, in spite of principle : being call'd one 
morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, 
with a spoon of silver ! They had been bought for 
me without my knowledge by my wife, and had 
cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty 
shillings, for which she had no other excuse or 
apology to make, but that she thought her husband 
deserv'd a silver spoon and China bowl as well as 
any of his neighbors. This was the first appear- 
ance of plate and China in our house, which after- 
ward, in a course of years, as our wealth increas'd, 
augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in 
value. 

I had been religiously educated as a Presby- 
terian ; and tho* some of the dogmas of that per- 
suasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, 
reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others 
doubtful, and I early absented myself from the 
public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my 
studying day, I never was without some religious 
principles. I never doubted, for instance, the 
existence of the Deity ; that he made the world, and 
govern'd it by his Providence ; that the most accept- 
able service of God was the doing good to man ; 
that our souls are immortal ; and that all crime will 
be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or 
hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every 
religion ; and, being to be found in all the religions 
we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' 
with different degrees of respect, as I found them 
more or less mix'd with other articles, which, with- 
out any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm 
morality, serv'd principally to divide us, and make 
us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, 

96 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

with an opinion that the worst had some good 
effects, indue' d me to avoid all discourse that might 
tend to lessen the good opinion another might have 
of his own religion ; and as our province increas'd 
in people, and new places of worship were continually 
wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contri- 
bution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might 
be the sect, was never refused. 

Tho' I seldom attended any public worship, I had 
still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility 
when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my 
annual subscription for the support of the only 
Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Phila- 
delphia. He us'd to visit me sometimes as a friend, 
and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I 
was now and then prevail'd on to do so, once for five 
Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion 
a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, 
notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's 
leisure in my course of study; but his discourses 
were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explica- 
tions of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were 
all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, 
since not a single moral principle was inculcated or 
enforc'd, their aim seeming to be rather to make us 
Presbyterians than good citizens. 

At length he took for his text that verse of the 
fourth chapter of Philippians, " Finally, brethren, 
whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or 
of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think 
on these things" And I imagin'd, in a sermon on such 
a text, we could not miss of having some morality. 
But he confin'd himself to five points only, as meant 
by the apostle, viz. : I. Keeping holy the Sabbath 
day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scrip- 
tures. 3. Attending duly the publick worship. 
4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5* Paying a due 
respect to God's ministers. These might be all good 

G 97 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

things j but, as they were not the kind of good things 
that I expected from that text, I despaired of ever 
meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, 
and attended his preaching no more. I had some 
years before compos* d a little Liturgy, or form of 
prayer, for my own private use (viz., in 1 728), 
entitled, Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion. I 
return'd to the use of this, and went no more to the 
public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, 
but I leave it, without attempting further to excuse 
it ; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not 
to make apologies for them. 

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and 
arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I 
wish'd to live without committing any fault at any 
time j I would conquer all that either natural incli- 
nation, custom, or company might lead me into. As 
I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and 
wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the 
one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had 
undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had 
imagined. While my care was employ'd in guard- 
ing against one fault, I was often surprised by 
another ; habit took the advantage of inattention ; 
inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I 
concluded, at length, that the mere speculative con- 
viction that it was our interest to be completely 
virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping ; 
and that the contrary habits must be broken, and 
good ones acquired and established, before we can 
have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude 
of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived 
the following method. 

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I 
had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue 
more or less numerous, as different writers included 
more or fewer ideas under the same name. Tem- 
perance, for example, was by some confined to eating 

98 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and drinking, while by others it was extended to 
mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, 
inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our 
avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the 
sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with 
fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with 
more ideas ; and I included under thirteen names of 
virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as neces- 
sary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, 
which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning. 
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were : 

I. Temperance. 
Eat not to dullness ; drink not to elevation. 

2. Silence. 

Speak not but what may benefit others or your- 
self; avoid trifling conversation. 

g. Order. 

Let all your things have their places ; let each 
part of your business have its time. 

4. Resolution. 

Resolve to perform what you ought ; perform 
without fail what you resolve. 

5. Frugality. 

Make no expense but to do good to others or 

yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 

6. Industry. 

Lose no time ; be always employ'd in something 
useful ; cut off all unnecessary actions. 

99 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

7. Sincerity. 

Use no hurtful deceit ; think innocently and justly, 
and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 

8. Justice. 

Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the 
benefits that are your duty. 

9. Moderation. 

Avoid extreams ; forbear resenting injuries so 
much as you think they deserve. 

10. Cleanliness. 

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or 
habitation. 

II. Tranquillity. 

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents com- 
mon or unavoidable. 

12. Chastity. 

Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, 
never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your 
own or another's peace or reputation. 

13. Humility. 
Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all 
these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to dis- 
tract my attention by attempting the whole at once, 
but to fix it on one of them at a time ; and, when I 
should be master of that, then to proceed to another, 
and so on, till I should have gone thro* the thirteen j 

loo 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and, as the previous acquisition of some might 
facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd 
them with that view, as they stand above. Tem- 
perance first, as it tends to procure that coolness 
and clearness of head, which is so necessary where 
constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard 
maintained against the unremitting attraction of 
ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. 
This being acquir'd and establish'd, Silence would 
be more easy ; and my desire being to gain know- 
ledge at the same time that I improv'd in virtue, and 
considering that in conversation it was obtain'd 
rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, 
and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting 
into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only 
made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave 
Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, 
I expected would allow me more time for attending 
to my project and my studies. Resolution, once 
become habitual, would keep me firm in my 
endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues ; 
Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remain- 
ing debt, and producing affluence and independence, 
would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and 
Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably 
to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, 
daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the 
following method for conducting that examination. 

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page 
for each of the virtues. I rul'd each page with red 
ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day 
of the week, marking each column with a letter for 
the day. I cross'd these columns with thirteen red 
lines, marking the beginning of each line with the 
first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and 
in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black 
spot, every fault I found upon examination to have 
been committed respecting that virtue upon that day. 

IOI 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



Form of the pages. 



TEMPERANCE. 


\ 

EAT NOT TO DULNESS ; 
DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. 




S. 


M. 


T. 


w. 


T. 


F. 


S. 


T. 
















S. 


* 


• 




* 




* 




o. 


• * 


* 


* 




* 


# 


• 


R. 




# 






• 




F. 




* 






• 






I 






* 










S. 
















J. 
















M. 
















C 
















T. 
















C. 
















H. 

















I determined to give a week's strict attention to 
each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first 
week, my great guard was to avoid every the least 
offence against Temperame, leaving the other vir- 
tues to their ordinary chance, only marking every 
evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first 
week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of 
spots, I suppos'd the habit of that virtue so much 
strengthen^, and its opposite weaken'd, that I might 
venture extending my attention to include the next, 
and for the following week keep both lines clear of 

I02 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go 
thro* a course compleat in thirteen weeks, and four 
courses in a year. And like him who, having a 
garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all 
the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach 
and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a 
time, and, having accomplish'd the first, proceeds to 
a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encourag- 
ing pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I 
made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines 
of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses, 
I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a 
thirteen weeks' daily examination. 

This my little book had for its motto these lines 
from Addison's Cato; 

'* Here will I hold. If there's a power above us 
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud 
Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue ; 
And that which he delights in must be happy." 

Another from Cicero, 

" O vitae Philosophia dux 1 O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque 
vitiorum ! Unus dies, bene et ex prasceptis tuis actus, peccanti 
immortalitati est anteponendus." 

Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking 
of wisdom or virtue : 

" Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand 
riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all 
her paths are peace." iii. 16, 17. 

And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, 
I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assist- 
ance for obtaining it ; to this end I formed the 
following little prayer, which was prefix'd to my 
tables of examination, for daily use. 

" powerful Goodness / bountiful Father ! merciful Guide f Increase 
in me that wisdom "which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my 

IO3 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

resolution j to perform what that -wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices 
to thy other children as the only return in my poruer for thy continual 
favours to me." 

I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took 
from Thomson's Poems, viz. : 

n Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme 1 
O teach me what is good ; teach me Thyself! 
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, 
From every low pursuit ; and fill my soul 
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; 
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss ! " 

The precept of Order requiring that every pari 
of my business should have its allotted time, one page in 
my little book contain'd the following scheme of 
employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural 
day. 



The Morning. 

good shall 



Question. What 
I do this day ? 



Rise, wash, and address Pow- 
erful Goodness / Contrive day's 
business, and take the resolu- 
tion of the day ; prosecute the 
present study, and breakfast. 



Noon. 



{" 



-Work. 

\ Read, or overlook 
/counts, and dine. 



my ac- 



hWork. 



Evening. 

Question. What good have I" 
done to-day ? 



Night. 



2 

3 
4 
SJ 

6 1 Put things in their places. 

7 I Supper, Music or diversion, 

8 j or conversation. Examination 

9 J of the day. 

io ; 
ii 

12 

I VSleep. 

2 

3 

4, 



I04 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I enter'd upon the execution of this plan for self- 
examination, and continu'd it with occasional inter- 
missions for some time. I was surpris'd to find 
myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined ; 
but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. 
To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my 
little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the 
paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a 
new course, became full of holes, I transferr'd my 
tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memo- 
randum book, on which the lines were drawn with 
red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those 
lines I mark'd my faults with a black-lead pencil, 
which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet 
sponge. After a while I went thro* one course only 
in a year, and afterward only one in several years, 
till at length I omitted them entirely, being employ'd 
in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity 
of affairs that interfered ; but I always carried my 
little book with me. 

My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble ; 
and I found that, tho' it might be practicable where 
a man's business was such as to leave him the dis- 
position of his time, that of a journeyman printer, 
for instance, it was not possible to be exactly ob- 
served by a master, who must mix wjth the world, 
and often receive people of business at their own 
hours. Order, too, with regard to places for things, 
papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. 
I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having 
an exceeding good memory > I was not so sensible 
of the inconvenience attending want of method. 
This article, therefore, cost me so much painful at- 
tention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I 
made so little progress in amendment, and had such 
frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give 
up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty 
character in that respect, like the man who, in buy- 

105 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ing an ax of a smith, my neighbour, desired to have 
the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The 
smith consented to grind it bright for him if he 
would turn the wheel ; he turn'd, while the smith 
press'd the broad face of the ax hard and heavily 
on the stone, which made the turning of it very 
fatiguing. The man came every now and then 
from the wheel to see how the work went on, and 
at length would take his ax as it was, without far- 
ther grinding. " No," said the smith, " turn on, 
turn on ; we shall have it bright by-and-by ; as yet, 
it is only speckled." " Yes," says the man, " but 1 
think I like a speckled ax best." And I believe this 
may have been the case with many, who, having, 
for want of some such means as I employ'd, found 
the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad 
habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given 
up the struggle, and concluded that "a speckled 
ax ivas best " ; for something, that pretended to be 
reason, was every now and then suggesting to me 
that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself 
might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it 
were known, would make me ridiculous ; that a 
perfect character might be attended with the incon- 
venience of being envied and hated ; and that a 
benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, 
to keep his friends in countenance. 

In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect 
to Order ; and now I am grown old, and my me- 
mory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, 
on the whole, tho* I never arrived at the perfection 
I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far 
short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and 
a happier man than I otherwise should have been 
if I had not attempted it ; as those who aim at per- 
fect writing by imitating the engraved copies, tho' 
they never reach the wish'd-for excellence of those 
copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, 

1 06 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and is tolerable while it continues fair and 
legible. 

It may be well my posterity should be informed 
that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, 
their ancestor ow'd the constant felicity of his life, 
down to his 79th year, in which this is written. 
"What reverses may attend the remainder is in the 
hand of Providence ; but, if they arrive, the reflec- 
tion on past happiness enjoy'd ought to help his 
bearing them with more resignation. To Tempe- 
rance he ascribes his long-continued health, and 
what is still left to him of a good constitution ; to 
Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his 
circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all 
that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citi- 
zen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation 
among the learned ; to Sincerity and Justice, the 
confidence of his country, and the honorable em- 
ploys it conferred upon him ; and to the joint influ- 
ence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the 
imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that 
evenness of temper, and that cheerfulness in con- 
versation, which makes his company still sought 
for, and agreeable even to his younger acquaint- 
ance. I hope, therefore, that some of my descend- 
ants may follow the example and reap the benefit. 

It will be remark' d that, tho* my scheme was not 
wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of 
any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular 
sect. I had purposely avoided them ; for, being 
fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of my 
method, and that it might be serviceable to people 
in all religions, and intending some time or other to 
publish it, I would not have any thing in it that 
should prejudice any one, of any sect, against it. 
I purposed writing a little comment on each virtue, 
in which I would have shown the advantages of 
possessing it, and the mischiefs attending its oppo- 

107 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

site vice •, and I should have called my book The 
Art of Virtue, 1 because it would have shown the 
means and manner of obtaining virtue, which would 
have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to 
be good, that does not instruct and indicate the 
means, but is like the apostle's man of verbal 
charity, who only without showing to the naked 
and hungry how or where they might get clothes or 
victuals, exhorted them to be fed and clothed. — 
James ii. 15, 16. 

But it so happened that my intention of writing 
and publishing this comment was never fulfilled. I 
did, indeed, from time to time, put down short hints 
of the sentiments, reasonings, etc., to be made use 
of in it, some of which I have still by me ; but the 
necessary close attention to private business in the 
earlier part of my life, and public business since, have 
occasioned my postponing it j for, it being con- 
nected in my mind with a great and extensive pro- 
ject, that required the whole man to execute, and 
which an unforeseen succession of employs pre- 
vented my attending to, it has hitherto remain' d 
unfinish'd. 

In this piece it was my design to explain and 
enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not 
hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden 
because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone 
considered ; that it was, therefore, every one's in- 
terest to be virtuous who wish'd to be happy even 
in this world ; and I should, from this circumstance 
(there being always in the world a number of rich 
merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have 
need of honest instruments for the management of 
their affairs, and such being so rare), have endea- 
vored to convince young persons that no qualities 
were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those 
of probity and integrity. 

1 Nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue. — Marg. not*. 

I08 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve ; 
but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that 
I was generally thought proud ; that my pride 
show'd itself frequently in conversation ; that I was 
not content with being in the right when discussing 
any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, 
of which he convinc'd me by mentioning several 
instances ; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, 
if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and 
I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive 
meaning to the word. 

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the 
reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with 
regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to 
forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of 
others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even 
forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our 
Junto, the use of every word or expression in the 
language that imported a fix'd opinion, such as 
certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead 
of them, / conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a 
thing to be so or so 5 or it so appears to me at pre- 
sent. When another asserted something that I 
thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of 
contradicting him abruptly, and of showing imme- 
diately some absurdity in his proposition ; and in 
answering I began by observing that in certain cases 
or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in 
the present case there appeared or seemed to me 
some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage 
of this change in my manner ; the conversations I 
engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest 
way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them 
a readier reception and less contradiction ; I had 
less mortification when I was found to be in the 
wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to 
give up their mistakes and join with me when I 
happened to be in the right. 

109 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

And this mode, which I at first put on with some 
violence to natural inclination, became at length so 
easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these 
fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical 
expression escape me. And to this habit (after my 
character of integrity) I think it principally owing 
that I had early so much weight with my fellow- 
citizens when I proposed new institutions, or altera- 
tions in the old, and so much influence in public 
councils when I became a member; for I was but a 
bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesi- 
tation in my choice of words, hardly correct in lan- 
guage, and yet I generally carried my points. 

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural 
passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, 
struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as 
much as one pleases, it is still aJive, and will every 
now and then peep out and show itself; you will see 
it, perhaps, often in this history ; for, even if I could 
conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should 
probably be proud of my humility. 

£Thus far written at Passy, 1 784.] 



no 



["lam now about to write at home, August, 1 788, but 
can not have the help expected from my papers, many 
of them being lost in the war. I have, however, 
found the following"] l 

Having mentioned a great and extensive project which 
I had conceiv'd, it seems proper that some account 
should be here given of that project and its object. 
Its first rise in my mind appears in the following 
little paper, accidentally preserv'd, viz. : 

Observations on my reading history, in Library, 
May 19th, 1731. 

"That the great affairs of the world, the wars, 
revolutions, etc., are carried on and affected by 
parties. 

" That the view of these parties is their present 
general interest, or what they take to be such. 

" That the different views of these different 
parties occasion all confusion. 

" That while a party is carrying on a general 
design, each man has his particular private interest 
in view. 

" That as soon as a party has gain'd its general 
point, each member becomes intent upon his par- 
ticular interest ; which, thwarting others, breaks 
that party into divisions, and occasions more con- 
fusion. 

"That few in public affairs act from a meer view 
of the good of their country, whatever they may 
pretend ; and, tho* their actings bring real good to 
their country, yet men primarily considered that 

1 This is a marginal memorandum. — B. 
Ill 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

their own and their country's interest was united, 
and did not act from a principle of benevolence. 

" That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a 
view to the good of mankind. 

'*. There seems to me at present to be great occa- 
sion for raising a United Party for Virtue, by form- 
ing the virtuous and good men of all nations into a 
regular body, to be govern'd by suitable good and 
wise rules, which good and wise men may probably 
be more unanimous in their obedience to, than com- 
mon people are to common laws. 

" I at present think that whoever attempts this 
aright, and is well qualified, can not fail of pleasing 
God, and of meeting with success. B. F." 

Revolving this project in my mind, as to be 
undertaken hereafter, when my circumstances should 
arFord me the necessary leisure, I put down from 
time to time, on pieces of paper, such thoughts as 
occurr'd to me respecting it. Most of these are 
lost j but I find one purporting to be the substance 
of an intended creed, containing, as I thought, the 
essentials of every known religion, and being free of 
every thing that might shock the professors of any 
religion. It is express'd in these words, viz. : 

" That there is one God, who made all things. 

" That he governs the world by his providence. 

" That he ought to be worshiped by adoration, 
prayer, and thanksgiving. 

" But that the most acceptable service of God is 
doing good to man. 

" That the soul is immortal. 

" And that God will certainly reward virtue and 
punish vice, either here or hereafter." 1 

My ideas at that time were, that the sect should 
be begun and spread at first among young and single 

1 In the Middle Ages, Franklin, if such a phenomenon at 
Franklin were possible in the Middle Age*, would probably have 
been the founder of a monastic order. — B. 

112 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

men only; that each person to be initiated should 
not only declare his assent to such creed, but should 
have exercised himself with the thirteen weeks' 
examination and practice of the virtues, as in the 
before-mention'd model ; that the existence of such 
a society should be kept a secret, till it was become 
considerable, to prevent solicitations for the admis- 
sion of improper persons, but that the members 
should each of them search among his acquaintance 
for ingenuous, well-disposed youths, to whom, with 
prudent caution, the scheme should be gradually 
communicated ; that the members should engage to 
afford their advice, assistance, and support to each 
other in promoting one another's interests, business, 
and advancement in life ; that, for distinction, we 
should be call'd The Society of the Free and Easy; 
free, as being, by the general practice and habit 
of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice ; and 
particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, 
free from debt, which exposes a man to confinement, 
and a species of slavery to his creditors. 

This is as much as I can now recollect of the 
project, except that I communicated it in part to two 
young men, who adopted it with some enthusiasm ; 
but my then narrow circumstances, and the neces- 
sity I was under of sticking close to my business, 
occasion'd my postponing the further prosecution 
of it at that time ; and my multifarious occupations, 
public and private, induc'd me to continue postpon- 
ing, so that it has been omitted till I have no longer 
strength or activity left sufficient for such an enter- 
prise ; tho' I am still of opinion that it was a 
practicable scheme, and might have been very useful, 
by forming a great number of good citizens ; and 
I was not discourag'd by the seeming magnitude of 
the undertaking, as I have always thought that one 
man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, 
and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he 
H 113 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amuse- 
ments or other employments that would divert his 
attention, makes the execution of that same plan his 
sole study and business. 

In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the 
name or Richard Saunders ; it was continu'd by 
me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd Poor 
Richard? 's Almanack. I endeavor'd to make it both 
entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to 
be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit 
from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And 
observing that it was generally read, scarce any 
neighborhood in the province being without it, I 
consider'd it as a proper vehicle for conveying 
instruction among the common people, who bought 
scarcely any other books ; I therefore filled all the 
little spaces that occurr'd between the remarkable 
days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, 
chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as 
the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing 
virtue ; it being more difficult for a man in want, 
to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those 
proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. 

These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of 
many ages and nations, I assembled and form'd into 
a connected discourse prefix'd to the Almanack of 
1757, as the harangue of a wise old man to the 
people attending an auction. The bringing all 
these scatter'd counsels thus into a focus enabled 
them to make greater impression. The piece, being 
universally approved, was copied in all the news- 
papers of the Continent ; reprinted in Britain on a 
broad side, to be stuck up in houses ; two transla- 
tions were made of it in French, and great numbers 
bought by the clergy and gentry, to distribute gratis 
among their poor parishioners and tenants. In 
Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in 
foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of influence in producing that growing plenty of 
money which was obseryable for several years after 
its publication. 

I considered my newspaper, also, as another 
means of communicating instruction, and in that 
view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the 
Spectator, and other moral writers; and sometimes 
publish'd little pieces of my own, which had been 
first compos'd for reading in our Junto. Of these 
are a Socratic dialogue, tending to prove that, what- 
ever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man 
could not properly be called a man of sense • and a 
discourse on self-denial, showing that virtue was 
not secure till its practice became a habitude, and 
was free from the opposition of contrary inclina- 
tions. These may be found in the papers about the 
beginning of 1735* 

In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully 
excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is 
of late years become so disgraceful to our country. 
Whenever I was solicited to insert any thing of that 
kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, 
the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was 
like a stage-coach, in which any one who would pay 
had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would 
print the piece separately if desired, and the author 
might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute 
himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread 
his detraction ; and that, having contracted with 
my subscribers to furnish them with what might 
be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their 
papers with private altercation, in which they had 
no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. 
Now, many of our printers make no scruple of 
gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusa- 
tions of the fairest characters among ourselves, 
augmenting animosity even to the producing of 
duels ; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print 

115 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

scurrilous reflections on the government of neigh- 
boring states, and even on the conduct of our best 
national allies, which may be attended with the 
most pernicious consequences. These things I men- 
tion as a caution to young printers, and that they 
may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and 
disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, 
but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example 
that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, 
be injurious to their interests. 

In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, where a printer was wanting. 
I furnish'd him with a press and letters, on an 
agreement of partnership, by which I was to receive 
one-third of the profits of the business, paying one- 
third of the expense. He was a man of learning, 
and honest but ignorant in matters of account 5 and, 
tho' he sometimes made me remittances, I could 
get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state 
of our partnership while he lived. On his decease, 
the business was continued by his widow, who, 
being born and bred in Holland, where, as I have 
been inform'd, the knowledge of accounts makes 
a part of female education, she not only sent me 
as clear a state as she could find of the transactions 
past, but continued to account with the greatest 
regularity and exactness every quarter afterwards, 
and managed the business with such success, that 
she not only brought up reputably a family of chil- 
dren, but, at the expiration of the term, was able to 
purchase of me the printing-house, and establish her 
son in it. 

I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of re- 
commending that branch of education for our young 
females, as likely to be of more use to them and 
their children, in case of widowhood, than either 
music or dancing, by preserving them from losses 
by imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to 

Il6 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house, 
with establish' d correspondence, till a son is grown 
up fit to undertake and go on with it, to the lasting 
advantage and enriching of the family. 

About the year 1734 there arrived among us 
from Ireland a young Presbyterian preacher, named 
Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice, and 
apparently extempore, most excellent discourses, 
which drew together considerable numbers of dif- 
ferent persuasions, who join'd in admiring them. 
Among the rest, I became one of his constant 
hearers, his sermons pleasing me, as they had little 
of the dogmatical kind, but inculcated strongly the 
practice of virtue, or what in the religious stile are 
called good works. Those, however, of our con- 
gregation, who considered themselves as orthodox 
Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and were 
join'd by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd 
him of heterodoxy before the synod, in order to 
have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan, 
and contributed all I could to raise a party in his 
favour, and we combated for him a while with some 
hopes of success. There was much scribbling pro 
and con upon the occasion ; and finding that, tho* 
an elegant preacher, he was but a poor writer, I 
lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three 
pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette of April, 
1735. Those pamphlets, as v is generally the case 
with controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the 
time, were soon out of vogue, and I question 
whether a single copy of them now exists. 

During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt 
his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries 
having heard him preach a sermon that was much 
admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon 
before, or at least a part of it. On search, he found 
that part quoted at length, in one of the British 
Reviews, from a discourse of Dr Foster's. This 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

detection gave many of our party disgust, who 
accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd 
our more speedy discomfiture in the synod. I 
stuck by him, however, as I rather approv'd his 
giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than 
bad ones of his own manufacture, tho* the latter 
was the practice of our common teachers. He 
afterward acknowledge to me that none of those 
he preach'd were his own ; adding, that his memory 
was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any 
sermon after one reading only. On our defeat, he 
left us in search elsewhere of better fortune, and 
I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, 
tho* I continu'd many years my subscription for the 
support of its ministers. 

I had begun in 1733 to stu ^y languages ; I soon 
made myself so much a master of the French as to 
be able to read the books with ease. I then under- 
took the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also 
learning it, us'd often to tempt me to play chess 
with him. Finding this took up too much of the 
time I had to spare for study, I at length refus'd to 
play any more, unless on this condition, that the 
victor in every game should have a right to impose 
a task, either in parts of the grammar to be got 
by heart, or in translations, etc., which tasks the 
vanquished was to perform upon honour, before our 
next meeting. As we play'd pretty equally, we 
thus beat one another into that language. I after- 
wards with a little painstaking, acquir'd as much of 
the Spanish as to read their books also. 

I have already mention'd that I had only one 
year's instruction in a Latin school, and that when 
very young, after which I neglected that language 
entirely. But, when I had attained an acquaintance 
with the French, Italian, and Spanish, I was sur- 
priz'd to find, on looking over a Latin Testament, 
that I understood so much more of that language 

Il8 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

than I had imagined, which encouraged me to appiy 
myself again to the study of it, and I met with more 
success, as those preceding languages had greatly 
smooth'd my way. 

From these circumstances, I have thought that 
there is some inconsistency in our common mode of 
teaching languages. We are told that it is proper 
to begin first with the Latin, and, having acquir'd 
that, it will be more easy to attain those modern 
languages which are deriv'd from it ; and yet we 
do not begin with the Greek, in order more easily 
to acquire the Latin. It is true that, if you can 
clamber and get to the top of a staircase without 
using the steps, you will more easily gain them in 
descending ; but certainly, if you begin with the 
lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top ; 
and I would therefore offer it to the consideration 
of those who superintend the education of our 
youth, whether, since many of those who begin 
with the Latin quit the same after spending some 
years without having made any great proficiency, 
and what they have learnt becomes almost useless, 
so that their time has been lost, it would not have 
been better to have begun with the French, pro- 
ceeding to the Italian, etc. ; for, tho', after spending 
the same time, they should quit the study of lan- 
guages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, 
however, have acquired another tongue or two, 
that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to 
them in common life. 

After ten years' absence from Boston, and having 
become easy in my circumstances, I made a journey 
thither to visit my relations, which I could not 
sooner well afford. In returning, I call'd at New- 
port to see my brother, then settled there with his 
printing-house. Our former differences were for- 
gotten, and our meeting was very cordial and affec- 
tionate. He was fast declining in his health, and 

119 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

requested of me that, in case of his death, which 
he apprehended not far distant, I would take home 
his son, then but ten years of age, and bring him 
up to the printing business. This I accordingly 
perform'd, sending him a few years to school before 
I took him into the office. His mother carried on 
the business till he was grown up, when I assisted 
him with an assortment of new types, those of his 
father being in a manner worn out. Thus it was 
that I made my brother ample amends for the service 
I had depriv'd him of by leaving him so early. 

In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four 
years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common 
way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that 
I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I 
mention for the sake of parents who omit that 
operation, on the supposition that they should never 
forgive themselves if a child died under it; my 
example showing that the regret may be the same 
either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be 
chosen. 

Our club, the Junto, was found so useful, and 
afforded such satisfaction to the members, that 
several were desirous of introducing their friends, 
which could not well be done without exceeding 
what we had settled as a convenient number, viz., 
twelve. We had from the beginning made it a rule 
to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty 
well observ'd ; the intention was to avoid applica- 
tions of improper persons* for admittance, some of 
whom, perhaps, we might find it difficult to refuse. 
I was one of those who were against any addition 
to our number, but, instead of it, made in writing a 
proposal, that every member separately should en- 
deavor to form a subordinate club, with the same 
rules respecting queries, etc., and without informing 
them of the connection with the Junto. The advan- 
tages proposed were, the improvement of so many 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

more young citizens by the use of our institutions ; 
our better acquaintance with the general sentiments 
of the inhabitants on any occasion, as the Junto 
member might propose what queries we should 
desire, and was to report to the Junto what pass'd 
in his separate club ; the promotion of our particular 
interests in business by more extensive recommen- 
dation, and the increase of our influence in public 
affairs, and our power of doing good by spreading 
thro' the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. 

The project was approv'd, and every member 
undertook to form his club, but they did not all suc- 
ceed. Five or six only were compleated, which 
were called by different names, as the Vine, the 
Union, the Band, etc. They were useful to them- 
selves, and afforded us a good deal of amusement, 
information, and instruction, besides answering, in 
some considerable degree, our views of influencing 
the public opinion on particular occasions, of which 
I shall give some instances in course of time as they 
happened. 

My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1 736, 
clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was 
made that year without opposition ; but the year 
following, when I was again propos'd (the choice, 
like that of the members, being annual), a new 
member made a long speech against me, in order to 
favour some other candidate. I was, however, 
chosen, which was the more agreeable to me, as, 
besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk, 
the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping 
up an interest among the members, which secur'd 
to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper 
money, and other occasional jobbs for the public, 
that, on the whole, were very profitable. 

I therefore did not like the opposition of this new 
member, who was a gentleman of fortune and edu- 
cation, with talents that were likely to give him, in 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

time, great influence in the House, which, indeed, 
afterwards happened. I did not, however, aim at 
gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to 
him, but, after some time, took this other method. 
Having heard that he had in his library a certain 
very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, 
expressing my desire of perusing that book, and 
requesting he would do me the favour of lending it 
to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and 
I return' d it in about a week with another note, 
expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When 
we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which 
he had never done before), and with great civility ; 
and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve 
me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, 
and our friendship continued to his death. This is 
another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had 
learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kind- 
ness ivill be more ready to do you another, than he ivhom 
you yourself have obliged? And it shows how much 
more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to 
resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings. 

In 1737, Colonel Spotswood, late governor of 
Virginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatis- 
fied with the conduct of his deputy at Philadelphia, 
respecting some negligence in rendering, and inex- 
actitude of his accounts, took from him the commis- 
sion, and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and 
found it of great advantage ; for, tho' the salary 
was small, it facilitated the correspondence that 
improv'd my newspaper, increas'd the number de- 
manded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, 
so that it came to afford me a considerable income. 
My old competitor's newspaper declin'd proportion- 
ably, and I was satisfy'd without retaliating his 
refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being 
carried by the riders. Thus he suffer'd greatly 
from his neglect in due accounting ; and I mention 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

it as a lesson to those young men who may be 
employ'd in managing affairs for others, that they 
should always render accounts, and make remit- 
tances, with great clearness and punctuality. The 
character of observing such a conduct is the most 
powerful of all recommendations to new employ- 
ments and increase of business. 

I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public 
affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. 
The city watch was one of the first things that I 
conceiv'd to want regulation. It was managed by 
the constables of the respective wards in turn ; the 
constable warned a number of housekeepers to 
attend him for the night. Those who chose never 
to attend, paid him six shillings a year to be excus'd, 
which was suppos'd to be for hiring substitutes, but 
was, in reality, much more than was necessary for 
that purpose, and made the constableship a place of 
profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, often got 
such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that respect- 
able housekeepers did not choose to mix with. 
Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and 
most of the nights spent in tippling. I thereupon 
wrote a paper to be read in Junto, representing 
these irregularities, but insisting more particularly 
on the inequality of this six-shilling tax of the con- 
stables, respecting the circumstances of those who 
paid it, since a poor widow housekeeper, all whose 
property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps 
exceed the value of fifty pounds, paid as much as the 
wealthiest merchant, who had thousands of pounds' 
worth of goods in his stores. 

On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual 
watch, the hiring of proper men to serve constantly 
in that business ; and as a more equitable way of 
supporting the charge, the levying a tax that should 
be proportion'd to the property. This idea, being 
approVd by the Junto, was communicated to the 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

other clubs, but as arising in each of them ; and 
though the plan was not immediately carried into 
execution, yet, by preparing the minds of people for 
the change, it paved the way for the law obtained a 
few years after, when the members of our clubs 
were grown into more influence. 

About this time I wrote a paper (first to be read 
in Junto, but it was afterward publish'd) on the 
different accidents and carelessnesses by which 
houses were set on fire, with cautions against them, 
and means proposed of avoiding them. This was 
much spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a 
project, which soon followed it, of forming a com- 
pany for the more ready extinguishing of fires, and 
mutual assistance in removing and securing of goods 
when in danger. Associates in this scheme were 
presently found, amounting to thirty. Our articles 
of agreement oblig'd every member to keep always 
in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of 
leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for 
packing and transporting of goods), which were to 
be brought to every fire ; and we agreed to meet 
once a month and spend a social evening together, 
in discoursing and communicating such ideas as 
occurred to us upon the subject of fires, as might be 
useful in our conduct on such occasions. 

The utility of this institution soon appeared, and 
many more desiring to be admitted than we thought 
convenient for one company, they were advised to 
form another, which was accordingly done ; and this 
went on, one new company being formed after 
another, till they became so numerous as to include 
most of the inhabitants who were men of property ; 
and now, at the time of my writing this, tho* up- 
ward of fifty years since its establishment, that which 
I first formed, called the Union Fire Company, still 
subsists and flourishes, tho' the first members are all 
deceas'd but myself and one, who is older by a year 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I there- 
for refus'd to contribute. I happened soon after to 
attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I 
perceived he intended to finish with a collection, 
and I silently resolved he should get nothing from 
me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, 
three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. 
As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded 
to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory 
made me asham'd of that, and determin'd me to give 
the silver ; and he finish' d so admirably, that I 
empty'd my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, 
gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of 
our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting 
the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection 
might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his 
pockets before he came from home. Towards the 
conclusion of the discourse, however, he feit a 
strong desire to give, and apply'd to a neighbour, 
who stood near him, to borrow some money for the 
purpose. The application was unfortunately [made] 
to perhaps the only man in the company who had 
the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. 
His answer was, " At any other time, Friend Hopkin- 
son, I would lend to thee freely ; but not no*u, for thee 
seems to be out of thy right senses? 

Some of Mr Whiteiield's enemies affected to sup- 
pose that he would apply these collections to his 
own private emolument ; but I, who was intimately 
acquainted with him (being employed in printing 
his Sermons and Journals, etc.), never had the least 
suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day de- 
cidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a 
perfectly honest man \ and methinks my testimony in 
his favour ought to have the more weight, as we 
had no religious connection. He us'd, indeed, 
sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had 
the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere 
on both sides, and lasted to his death. 

The following instance will show something of 
the terms on which we stood. Upon one of his 
arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me 
that he should come soon to Philadelphia, but knew 
not where he could lodge when there, as he under- 
stood his old friend and host, Mr Benezet, was 
removed to German town. My answer was, " You 
know my house ; if you can make shift with its 
scanty accommodations, you will be most heartily 
welcome." He reply'd, that if I made that kind 
offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a reward. 
And I returned, " Dont let me be mistaken ; it was 
not Jor Christ's sake, but for your sake." One of 
our common acquaintance jocosely remark'd, that, 
knowing it to be the custom of the saints, when 
they received any favour, to shift the burden of 
the obligation from off their own shoulders, and 
place it in heaven, I had contriv'd to fix it on 
earth. 

The last time I saw Mr Whitefield was in London, 
when he consulted me about his Orphan House 
concern, and his purpose of appropriating it to the 
establishment of a college. 

He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his 
words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be 
heard and understood at a great distance, especially 
as his auditories, however numerous, observ'd the 
most exact silence. He preach'd one evening from 
the top of the Court-house steps, which are in the 
middle of Market-street, and on the west side of 
Second - street, which crosses it at right angles. 
Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a con- 
siderable distance. Being among the hindmost in 
Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far 
he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the 
street towards the river ; and I found his voice dis- 

128 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise 
in that street obscur'd it. Imagining then a semi- 
circle, of which my distance should be the radius, 
and that it were fill'd with auditors, to each of 
whom I allow' d two square feet, I computed that 
he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. 
This reconcil'd me to the newspaper accounts of his 
having preach'd to twenty-five thousand people in 
the fields, and to the antient histories of generals 
haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes 
doubted. 

By hearing him often, I came to distinguish easily 
between sermons newly compos'd, and those which 
he had often preach'd in the course of his travels. 
His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent 
repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every 
modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd 
and well plac'd, that, without being interested in 
the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with 
the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind 
with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick. 
This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over 
those who are stationary, as the latter can not 
well improve their delivery of a sermon by so 
many rehearsals. 

His writing and printing from time to time gave 
great advantage to his enemies ; unguarded expres- 
sions, and even erroneous opinions, delivered in 
preaching, might have been afterwards explain'd 
or qualified by supposing others that might have 
accompani'd them, or they might have been deny'd ; 
but litera scripta manet. Critics attack' d his writings 
violently, and with so much appearance of reason 
as to diminish the number of his votaries and 
prevent their encrease ; so that I am of opinion if 
he had never written any thing, he would have left 
behind him a much more numerous and important 
sect, and his reputation might in that case have been 
I 129 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

still growing, even after his death, as there being 
nothing of his writing on which to found a censure 
and give him a lower character, his proselytes would 
be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety 
of excellences as their enthusiastic admiration might 
wish him to have possessed. 

My business was now continually augmenting, 
and my circumstances growing daily easier, my 
newspaper having become very profitable, as being 
for a time almost the only one in this and the 
neighbouring provinces. I experienced, too, the 
truth of the observation, "that after getting the first 
hundred pound y it is more easy to get the second? money 
itself being of a prolific nature. 

The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I 
was encourag'd to engage in others, and to promote 
several of my workmen, who had behaved well, by 
establishing them with printing-houses in different 
colonies, on the same terms with that in Carolina. 
Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of 
our term, six years, to purchase the types of me and 
go on working for themselves, by which means 
several families were raised. Partnerships often 
finish in quarrels ; but I was happy in this, that 
mine were all carried on and ended amicably, 
owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of 
having very explicitly settled, in our articles, 
every thing to be done by or expected from each 
partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, 
which precaution I would therefore recommend 
to all who enter into partnerships ; for, whatever 
esteem partners may have for, and confidence in 
each other at the time of the contract, little 
jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of 
inequality in the care and burden of the business, 
etc., which are attended often with breach of 
friendship and of the connection, perhaps with 
lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences. 

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HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied 
with my being established in Pennsylvania. There 
were, however, two things that I regretted, there 
being no provision for defense, nor for a compleat 
education of youth ; no militia, nor any college. I 
therefore, in 1 743, drew up a proposal for establish- 
ing an academy ; and at that time, thinking the 
Reverend Mr Peters, who was out of employ, a fit 
person to superintend such an institution, I com- 
municated the project to him; but he, having more 
profitable views in the service of the proprietaries, 
which succeeded, declin'd the undertaking ; and, 
not knowing another at that time suitable for such 
a trust, I let the scheme lie a while dormant. I 
succeeded better the next year, 1 744, in proposing 
and establishing a Philosophical Society. The paper 
I wrote for that purpose will be found among my 
writings, when collected. 

With respect to defense, Spain having been 
several years at war against Great Britain, and 
being at length join'd by France, which brought 
us into great danger; and the laboured and long- 
continued endeavour of our governor, Thomas, to 
prevail with our Quaker Assembly to pass a 
militia law, and make other provisions for the 
security of the province, having proved abortive, 
I determined to try what might be done by a 
voluntary association of the people. To promote 
this, I first wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled 
Plain Truth, in which I stated our defenceless 
situation in strong lights, with the necessity of 
union and discipline for our defense, and promis'd 
to propose in a few days an association, to be 
generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet 
had a sudden and surprising effect. I was call'd 
upon for the instrument of association, and having 
settled the draft of it with a few friends, I appointed 
a meeting of the citizens in the large building before 

»3 X 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

mentioned. The house was pretty full ; I had pre- 
pared a number of printed copies, and provided pens 
and ink dispers'd all over the room. I harangued 
them a little on the subject, read the paper, and 
explained it, and then distributed the copies, 
which were eagerly signed, not the least objection 
being made. 

When the company separated, and the papers 
were collected, we found above twelve hundred 
hands ; and, other copies being dispersed in the 
country, the subscribers amounted at length to 
upward of ten thousand. These all furnished them- 
selves as soon as they could with arms, formed 
themselves into companies and regiments, chose 
their own officers, and met every week to be 
instructed in the manual exercise, and other parts 
of military discipline. The women, by subscriptions 
among themselves, provided silk colors, which they 
presented to the companies, painted with different 
devices and mottos, which I supplied. 

The officers of the companies composing the 
Philadelphia regiment, being met, chose me for 
their colonel ; but, conceiving myself unfit, I de- 
clin'd that station, and recommended Mr Lawrence, 
a fine person, and man of influence, who was 
accordingly appointed. I then propos'd a lottery 
to defray the expense of building a battery below 
the town, and furnishing it with cannon. It filled 
expeditiously, and the battery was soon erected, the 
merlons being fram'd of logs and fill'd with earth. 
We bought some old cannon from Boston, but, these 
not being sufficient, we wrote to England for more, 
soliciting, at the same time, our proprietaries for 
some assistance, tho' without much expectation of 
obtaining it. 

Meanwhile, Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, 
Abram Taylor, Esqr., and myself were sent to New 
York by the associators, commission^ to borrow 

132 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

some cannon of Governor Clinton. He at first 
refus'd us peremptorily ; but at dinner with his 
council, where there was great drinking of Madeira 
wine, as the custom of that place then was, he 
softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. 
After a few more bumpers he advanc'd to ten ; and 
at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen. 
They were fine cannon, eighteen-pounders, with 
their carriages, which we soon transported and 
mounted on our battery, where the associators kept 
a nightly guard while the war lasted, and among 
the rest I regularly took my turn of duty there as a 
common soldier. 

My activity in these operations was agreeable to 
the governor and council ; they took me into con- 
fidence, and I was consulted by them in every 
measure wherein their concurrence was thought 
useful to the association. Calling in the aid of 
religion, I propos'd to them the proclaiming a fast, 
to promote reformation, and implore the blessing of 
Heaven on our undertaking. They embrac'd the 
motion ; but, as it was the first fast ever thought of 
in the province, the secretary had no precedent from 
which to draw the proclamation. My education in 
New England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, 
was here of some advantage : I drew it in the 
accustomed stile, it was translated into German, 
printed in both languages, and divulg'd thro* the 
province. This gave the clergy of the different 
sects an opportunity of influencing their congrega- 
tions to join in the association, and it would probably 
have been general among all but Quakers if the 
peace had not soon interven'd. 

It was thought by some of my friends that, by my 
activity in these affairs, I should offend that sect, 
and thereby lose my interest in the Assembly of the 
province, where they formed a great majority. A 
young gentleman who had likewise some friends in 

J 33 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the House, and wished to succeed me as their clerk, 
acquainted me that it was decided to displace me at 
the next election ; and he, therefore, in good will, 
advis'd me to resign, as more consistent with my 
honour than being turn'd out. My answer to him 
was, that I had read or heard of some public man 
who made it a rule never to ask for an office, and 
never to refuse one when offer* d to him. " I 
approve," says I, " of his rule, and will practice it 
with a small addition ; I shall never ask, never 
refuse, nor ever resign an office. If they will have 
my office of clerk to dispose of to another, they 
shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, 
lose my right of some time or other making reprisals 
on my adversaries." I heard, however, no more of 
this $ I was chosen again unanimously as usual at 
the next election. Possibly, as they dislik'd my 
late intimacy with the members of council, who 
had join'd the governors in all the disputes about 
military preparations, with which the House had 
long been harass'd, they might have been pleas'd if 
I would voluntarily have left them; but they did 
not care to displace me on account merely of my 
zeal for the association, and they could not well 
give another reason. 

Indeed I had some cause to believe that the 
defense of the country was not disagreeable to any 
of them, provided they were not requir'd to assist 
in it. And I found that a much greater number of 
them than I could have imagined, tho' against 
offensive war, were clearly for the defensive. Many 
pamphlets pro and con were publish'd on the subject, 
and some by good Quakers, in favour of defense, 
which I believe convinc'd most of their younger 
people. 

A transaction in our fire company gave me some 
insight into their prevailing sentiments. It had 
been propos'd that we should encourage the scheme 

134 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

for building a battery by laying out the present 
stock, then about sixty pounds, in tickets of the 
lottery. By our rules, no money could be dispos'd 
of till the next meeting after the proposal. The 
company consisted of thirty members, of which 
twenty-two were Quakers, and eight only of other 
persuasions. We eight punctually attended the 
meeting 5 but, tho' we thought that some of the 
Quakers would join us, we were by no means sure 
of a majority. Only one Quaker, Mr James Morris, 
appealed to oppose the measure. He expressed 
much sorrow that it had ever been propos'd, as he 
said Friends were all against it, and it would create 
such discord as might break up the company. We 
told him that we saw no reason for that ; we were 
the minority, and if Friends were against the 
measure, and outvoted us, we must and should, 
agreeably to the usage of all societies, submit. 
When the hour for business arriv'd it was mov'd to 
put the vote ; he allow'd we might then do it by the 
rules, but, as he could assure us that a number of 
members intended to be present for the purpose of 
opposing it, it would be but candid to allow a little 
time for their appearing. 

While we were disputing this, a waiter came to 
tell me two gentlemen below desir'd to speak with 
me. I went down, and found they were two of our 
Quaker members. They told me there were eight 
of them assembled at a tavern just by ; that they 
were determin'd to come and vote with us if there 
should be occasion, which they hop'd would not be 
the case, and desir'd we would not call for their 
assistance if we could do without it, as their voting 
for such a measure might embroil them with their 
elders and friends. Being thus secure of a majority, 
I went up, and after a little seeming hesitation, 
agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr Morris 
allow'd to be extreamly fair. Not one of his 

135 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

opposing friends appear'd, at which he express'd 
great surprize ; and, at the expiration of the hour, 
we carry'd the resolution eight to one ; and as, of 
the twenty-two Quakers, eight were ready to vote 
with us, and thirteen, by their absence, manifested 
that they were not inclin'd to oppose the measure, 
I afterward estimated the proportion of Quakers 
sincerely against defense as one to twenty-one only ; 
for these were all regular members of that society, 
and in good reputation among them, and had due 
notice of what was propos'd at that meeting. 

The honorable and learned Mr Logan, who had 
always been of that sect, was one who wrote an 
address to them, declaring his approbation of defen- 
sive war, and supporting his opinion by many strong 
arguments. He put into my hands sixty pounds to 
be laid out in lottery tickets for the battery, with 
directions to apply what prizes might be drawn 
wholly to that service. He told me the following 
anecdote of his old master, William Penn, respecting 
defense. He came over from England, when a 
young man, with that proprietary, and as his 
secretary. It was war-time, and their ship was 
chas'd by an armed vessel, suppos'd to be an enemy. 
Their captain prepar'd for defense ; but told William 
Penn, and his company of Quakers, that he did not 
expect their assistance, and they might retire into 
the cabin, which they did, except James Logan, who 
chose to stay upon deck, and was quarter' d to a 
gun. The suppos'd enemy prov'd a friend, so there 
was no fighting ; but when the secretary went down 
to communicate the intelligence, William Penn 
rebuk'd him severely for staying upon deck, and 
undertaking to assist in defending the vessel, 
contrary to the principles of Friends, especially as it 
had not been required by the captain. This reproof, 
being before all the company, piqu'd the secretary, 
who answer'd, " I being thy servant, why did thee not 

136 • 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

order me to come down? But thee was willing enough 
that I should stay and help to fight the ship when thee 
thought there was danger." 

My being many years in the Assembly, the 
majority of which were constantly Quakers, gave 
me frequent opportunities of seeing the embarrass- 
ment given them by their principle against war, 
whenever application was made to them, by order of 
the crown, to grant aids for military purposes. 
They were unwilling to offend government, on the 
one hand, by a direct refusal ; and their friends, the 
body of the Quakers, on the other, by a compliance 
contrary to their principles ; hence a variety of 
evasions to avoid complying, and modes of disguising 
the compliance when it became unavoidable. The 
common mode at last was, to grant money under the 
phrase of its being "jor the king's use," and never to 
inquire how it was applied. 

But, if the demand was not directly from the 
crown, that phrase was found not so proper, and 
some other was to be invented. As, when powder 
was wanting (I think it was for the garrison at 
Louisburg), and the government of New England 
solicited a grant of some from Pennsilvania, which 
was much urg'd on the House by Governor Thomas, 
they could not grant money to buy powder, because 
that was an ingredient of war ; but they voted an 
aid to New England of three thousand pounds, to 
be put into the hands of the governor, and appro- 
priated it for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, 
or other grain. Some of the council, desirous of 
giving the House still further embarrassment, advis'd 
the governor not to accept provision, as not being 
the thing he had demanded; but he reply'd, "I 
shall take the money, for I understand very well 
their meaning ; other grain is gunpowder," which he 
accordingly bought, and they never objected to it. 1 

1 See the rotes. — [Marg. «•**.] 
1^7 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

It was in allusion to this fact that, when in our fire 
company we feared the success of our proposal in 
favour of the lottery, and I had said to my friend 
Mr Syng, one of our members, " If we fail, let us 
move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money ; 
the Quakers can have no objection to that ; and then, 
if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that 
purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly 
a fire-engine? " I see," says he, " you have improv'd 
by being so long in the Assembly ; your equivocal 
project would be just a match for their wheat or 
other grain" 

These embarrassments that the Quakers suffer'd 
from having establish' d and published it as one of 
their principles that no kind of war was lawful, and 
which, being once published, they could not after- 
wards, however they might change their minds, 
easily get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more 
prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of 
the Dunkers. I was acquainted with one of its 
founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appear'd. 
He complain'd to me that they were grievously 
calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and 
charg'd with abominable principles and practices, to 
which they were utter strangers. I told him this 
had always been the case with new sects, and that, 
to put a stop to such abuse, I imagin'd it might be 
well to publish the articles of their belief, and the 
rules of their discipline. He said that it had been 
propos'd among them, but not agreed to, for this 
reason : " When we were first drawn together as a 
society," says he, " it had pleased God to enlighten 
our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which 
we once esteemed truths, were errors ; and that 
others, which we had esteemed errors, were real 
truths. From time to time He has been pleased to 
afford us farther light, and our principles have been 
improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we 

138 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this 
progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or 
theological knowledge ; and we fear that, if we 
should once print our confession of faith, we should 
feel ourselves as if bound and confin'd by it, and 
perhaps be unwilling to receive further improve- 
ment, and our successors still more so, as conceiv- 
ing what we their elders and founders had done, 
to be something sacred, never to be departed 
from." 

This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular 
instance in the history of mankind, every other 
sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and 
that those who differ are so far in the wrong ; like 
a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some 
distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up 
in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the 
people in the fields on each side, but near him all 
appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog 
as any of them. To avoid this kind of embar- 
rassment, the Quakers have of late years been 
gradually declining the public service in the As- 
sembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to 
quit their power than their principle. 

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, 
that having, in 1 742, invented an open stove for the 
better warming of rooms, and at the same time 
saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed 
in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr 
Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having 
an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for 
these stoves a profitable thing, as they were grow- 
ing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote 
and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of 
the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces ; wherein their 
Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly 
explained; their Advantages above every other Method 
of warming Rooms demonstrated ; and all Objections that 

1 39 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

have been raised against the Use of them answered and 
obviated? etc This pamphlet had a good effect. 
Gov*]:. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction 
of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to 
give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a 
term of years ; but I declin'd it from a principle 
which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, 
viz., That, as ive enjoy great advantages from the in- 
ventions of others, ive should be glad of an opportunity 
to serve others by any invention of ours ; and this ive 
should do freely and generously. 

An ironmonger in London however, assuming a 
good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into 
his own, and making some small changes in the 
machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a 
patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little 
fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of 
patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho* 
not always with the same success, which I never 
contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents 
myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fire- 
places in very many nouses, both of this and the 
neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great 
saving of wood to the inhabitants. 

Peace being concluded, and the association busi- 
ness therefore at an end, I turn'd my thoughts again 
to the affair of establishing an academy. The first 
step I took was to associate in the design a number 
of active friends, of whom the Junto furnished a good 
part ; the next was to write and publish a pamphlet, 
entitled Proposals Relating to the Education of Tout h in 
Pennsylvania. This I distributed among the prin- 
cipal inhabitants gratis ; and as soon as I could suppose 
their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it, I 
set on foot a subscription for opening and supporting 
an academy ; it was to be paid in quotas yearly for 
five years ; by so dividing it, I judg'd the subscrip- 
tion might be larger, and I believed it was so, 

140 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

amounting to no less, if I remember right, than 
five thousand pounds. 

In the introduction to these proposals, I stated 
their publication, not as an act of mine, but of some 
publick-spirited gentlemen, avoiding as much as I could, 
according to my usual rule, the presenting myself 
to the publick as the author of any scheme for their 
benefit. 

The subscribers, to carry the project into imme- 
diate execution, chose out of their number twenty- 
four trustees, and appointed Mr Francis, then 
attorney-general, and myself to draw up constitu- 
tions for the government of the academy; which 
being done and signed, a house was hired, masters 
engag'd, and the schools opened, I think, in the same 
year, 1749. 

The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon 
found too small, and we were looking out for a piece 
of ground, properly situated, with intention to build, 
when Providence threw into our way a large house 
ready built, which, with a few alterations, might 
well serve our purpose. This was the building 
before mentioned, erected by the hearers of Mr 
Whitefield, and was obtained for us in the following 
manner. 

It is to be noted that the contributions to this 
building being made by people of different sects, 
care was taken in the nomination of trustees, in 
whom the building and ground was to be vested, 
that a predominancy should not be given to any 
sect, lest in time that predominancy might be a 
means of appropriating the whole to the use of such 
sect, contrary to the original intention. It was 
therefore that one of each sect was appointed, viz., 
one Church-of-England man, one Presbyterian, one 
Baptist, one Moravian, etc., those, in case of vacancy 
by death, were to fill it by election from among the 
contributors. The Moravian happen'd not to please 

141 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

his colleagues, and on his death they resolved to 
have no other of that sect. The difficulty then was, 
how to avoid having two of some other sect, by 
means of the new choice. 

Several persons were named, and for that reason 
not agreed to. At length one mention'd me, with 
the observation that I was merely an honest man, 
and of no sect at all, which prevail'd with them to 
chuse me. The enthusiasm which existed when 
the house was built had long since abated, and its 
trustees had not been able to procure fresh contri- 
butions for paying the ground-rent, and discharging 
some other debts the building had occasion'd, which 
embarrass'd them greatly. Being now a member of 
both setts of trustees, that for the building and that 
for the Academy, I had a good opportunity of 
negotiating with both, and brought them finally 
to an agreement, by which the trustees for the 
building were to cede it to those of the academy, 
the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep 
for ever open in the building a large hall for occa- 
sional preachers, according to the original intention, 
and maintain a free-school for the instruction of poor 
children. Writings were accordingly drawn, and 
on paying the debts the trustees of the academy 
were put in possession of the premises ; and by 
dividing the great and lofty hall into stories, and 
different rooms above and below for the several 
schools, and purchasing some additional ground, the 
whole was soon made fit for our purpose, and the 
scholars remov'd into the building. The care and 
trouble of agreeing with the workmen, purchasing 
materials, and superintending the work, fell upon 
me ; and I went thro' it the more cheerfully, as it did 
not then interfere with my private business, having 
the year before taken a very able, industrious, and 
honest partner, Mr David Hall, with whose char- 
acter I was well acquainted, as he had work'd for me 

142 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

four years. He took off my hands all care of the 
printing-office, paying me punctually my share of 
the profits. The partnership continued eighteen 
years, successfully for us both. 

The trustees of the academy, after a while, were 
incorporated by a charter from the governor ; their 
funds were increas'd by contributions in Britain and 
grants of land from the proprietaries, to which the 
Assembly has since made considerable addition; 
and thus was established the present University of 
Philadelphia. I have been continued one of its 
trustees from the beginning, now near forty years, 
and have had the very great pleasure of seeing a 
number of the youth who have receiv'd their educa- 
tion in it, distinguish'd by their improv'd abilities, 
serviceable in public stations, and ornaments to their 
country. 

When I disengaged myself, as above mentioned, 
from private business, I flatter'd myself that, by the 
sufficient tho* moderate fortune I had acquir'd, I had 
secured leisure during the rest of my life for philo- 
sophical studies and amusements. I purchased all 
Dr Spence's apparatus, who had come from Eng- 
land to lecture here, and I proceeded in my elec- 
trical experiments with great alacrity ; but the pub- 
lick, now considering me as a man of leisure, laid 
hold of me for their purposes, every part of our 
civil government, and almost at the same time, im- 
posing some duty upon me. The governor put me 
into the commission of the peace; the corpora- 
tion of the city chose me of the common council, 
and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at 
large chose me a burgess to represent them in 
Assembly. This latter station was the more agree- 
able to me, as I was at length tired with sitting there 
to hear debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no 
part, and which were often so unentertaining that I 
was induc'd to amuse myself with making magic 

143 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

squares or circles, or any thing to avoid weariness ; 
and I conceiv'd my becoming a member would 
enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, 
however, insinuate that my ambition was not flatter'd 
by all these promotions ; it certainly was ; for, con- 
sidering my low beginning, they were great things 
to me ; and they were still more pleasing, as being 
so many spontaneous testimonies of the public good 
opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited. 

The office of justice of the peace I try'd a little, 
by attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench 
to hear causes ; but finding that more knowledge of 
the common law than I possess'd was necessary to 
act in that station with credit, I gradually withdrew 
from it, excusing myself by my being oblig'd to 
attend the higher duties of a legislator in the 
Assembly. My election to this trust was repeated 
every year for ten years, without my ever asking 
any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly 
or indirectly, any desire of being chosen. On taking 
my seat in the House, my son was appointed their 
clerk. 

The year following, a treaty being to be held with 
the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message 
to the House, proposing that they should nominate 
some of their members, to be join'd with some 
members of council, as commissioners for that pur- 
pose. 1 The House named the speaker (Mr Norris) 
and myself; and, being commission'd, we went to 
Carlisle, and met the Indians accordingly. 

As those people are extreamly apt to get drunk, 
and, when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, 
we strictly forbad the selling any liquor to them ; 
and when they complain' d of this restriction, we 
told them that if they would continue sober during 
the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when 
business was over. They promis'd this, and they 

1 See the votes to have thw more correctly. — [Marg. note.] 

144 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

kept their promise, because they could get no liquor, 
and the treaty was conducted very orderly, and con- 
cluded to mutual satisfaction. They then claim'd 
and receiv'd the rum ; this was in the afternoon : 
they were near one hundred men, women, and chil- 
dren, and were lodg'd in temporary cabins, built in 
the form of a square, just without the town. In the 
evening, hearing a great noise among them, the 
commissioners walk'd out to see what was the 
matter. "We found they had made a great bonfire 
in the middle of the square ; they were all drunk, 
men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their 
dark-colour'd bodies, half naked, seen only by the 
gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beat- 
ing one another with firebrands, accompanied by 
their horrid yellings, form'd a scene the most resem- 
bling our ideas of hell that could well be imagin'd ; 
there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired 
to our lodging. At midnight a number of them 
came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, 
of which we took no notice. 

The next day, sensible they had misbehav'd in 
giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their 
old counselors to make their apology. The orator 
acknowledg'd the fault, but laid it upon the rum ; 
and then endeavored to excuse the rum by saying, 
* ' The Great Spirit, who made all things, made every thing 
for some use, and whatever use he designed any thing for, 
that use it should always be put to. Noiv, when he made 
rum, he said, ' Let this be for the Indians to get drunk 
with, 9 and it must be so." .And, indeed, if it be the 
design of Providence to extirpate these savages in 
order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it 
seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed 
means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who 
formerly inhabited the sea-coast. 

In 1 75 1, Dr Thomas Bond, a particular friend of 
mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital 
k 145 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

in Philadelphia (a very beneficent design, which has 
been ascrib'd to me, but was originally his), for the 
reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether 
inhabitants of the province or strangers. He was 
zealous and active in endeavouring to procure sub- 
scriptions for it, but the proposal being a novelty in 
America, and at first not well understood, he met 
with but small success. 

At length he came to me with the compliment 
that he found there was no such thing as carrying 
a public-spirited project through without my being 
concern'd in it. " For," says he, "lam often ask'd 
by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have you 
consulted Franklin upon this business ? And what 
does he think of it ? And when I tell them that I 
have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they 
do not subscribe, but say they will consider of it." 
I enquired into the nature and probable utility of his 
scheme, and receiving from him a very satisfactory 
explanation, I not only subscrib'd to it myself, but 
engag'd heartily in the design of procuring sub- 
scriptions from others. Previously, however, to the 
solicitation, I endeavoured to prepare the minds of 
the people by writing on the subject in the news- 
papers, which was my usual custom in such cases, 
but which he had omitted. 

The subscriptions afterwards were more free and 
generous ; but, beginning to flag, I saw they would 
be insufficient without some assistance from the 
Assembly, and therefore propos'd to petition for it, 
which was done. The country members did not at 
first relish the project ; they objected that it could 
only be serviceable to the city, and therefore the 
citizens alone should be at the expense of it ; and 
they doubted whether the citizens themselves gen- 
erally approv'd of it. My allegation on the con- 
trary, that it met with such approbation as to leave 
no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand 

146 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pounds by voluntary donations, they considered as 
a most extravagant supposition, and utterly impos- 
sible. 

On this I form'd my plan ; and, asking leave to 
bring in a bill for incorporating the contributors ac- 
cording to the prayer of their petition, and granting 
them a blank sum of money, which leave was ob- 
tained chiefly on the consideration that the House 
could throw the bill out if they did not like it, I 
drew it so as to make the important clause a condi- 
tional one, viz., " And be it enacted, by the autho- 
rity aforesaid, that when the said contributors shall 
have met and chosen their managers and treasurer, 
and shall have raised by their contributions a capi- 
tal stock of value (the yearly interest of 

which is to be applied to the accommodating of 
the sick poor in the said hospital, free of charge 
for diet, attendance, advice, and medicines), and 
shall make the same appear to the satisfaction 
of the speaker of the Assembly for the time being, 
that then it shall and may be lawful for the said 
speaker, and he is hereby required, to sign an order 
on the provincial treasurer for the payment of two 
thousand pounds, in two yearly payments, to the 
treasurer of the said hospital, to be applied to the 
founding, building, and finishing of the same." 

This condition carried the bill through ; for the 
members, who had oppos'd the grant, and now con- 
ceiv'd they might have the credit of being charit- 
able without the expence, agreed to its passage ; and 
then, in soliciting subscriptions among the people, 
we urg'd the conditional promise of the law as an 
additional motive to give, since every man's dona- 
tion would be doubled ; thus the clause work'd both 
ways. The subscriptions accordingly soon exceeded 
the requisite sum, and we claim' d and receiv'd the 
public gift, which enabled us to carry the design 
into execution. A convenient and handsome build- 

147 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ing was soon erected ; the institution has by constant 
experience been found useful, and flourishes to this 
day ; and I do not remember any of my political 
manoeuvres, the success of which gave me at the 
time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, 
I more easily excus'd myself for having made some 
use of cunning. 

It was about this time that another projector, 
the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, came to me with a re- 
quest that I would assist him in procuring a sub- 
scription for erecting a new meeting-house. It was 
to be for the use of a congregation he had gathered 
among the Presbyterians, who were originally dis- 
ciples of Mr Whitfield. Unwilling to make my- 
self disagreeable to my fellow-citizens by too 
frequently soliciting their contributions, I absolutely 
refus'd. He then desired I would furnish him with 
a list of the names of persons I knew by experience 
to be generous and public-spirited. I thought it 
would be unbecoming in me, after their kind com- 
pliance with my solicitations, to mark them out to 
be worried by other beggars, and therefore refus'd 
also to give such a list. He then desir'd I would 
at least give him my advice. " That I will readily 
do," said I; " and, in the first place, I advise you to 
apply to all those whom you know will give some- 
thing ; next, to those whom you are uncertain 
whether they will give any thing or not, and show 
them the list of those who have given ; and, lastly, 
do not neglect those who you are sure will give 
nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken. ,, 
He laugh' d and thank'd me, and said he would take 
my advice. He did so, for he ask'd of everybody, 
and he obtain' d a much larger sum than he expected, 
with which he erected the capacious and very ele- 
gant meeting-house that stands in Arch-street. 

Our city, tho' laid out with a beautiful regularity, 
the streets large, strait, and crossing each other 

148 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

at right angles, had the disgrace of suffering those 
streets to remain long unpav'd, and in wet weather 
the wheels of heavy carriages plough' d them into a 
quagmire, so that it was difficult to cross them ; and 
in dry weather the dust was offensive. I had liv'd 
near what was call'd the Jersey Market, and saw 
with pain the inhabitants wading in mud while 
purchasing their provisions. A strip of ground 
down the middle of that market was at length pav'd 
with brick, so that, being once in the market, they 
had firm footing, but were often over shoes in dirt 
to get there. By talking and writing on the subject, 
I was at length instrumental in getting the street 
pav'd with # stone between the market and the brick'd 
foot-pavement, that was on each side next the 
houses. This, for some time, gave an easy access 
to the market dry-shod ; but, the rest of the street 
not being pav'd, whenever a carriage came out of 
the mud upon this pavement, it shook off and left 
its dirt upon it, and it was soon cover'd with mire, 
which was not remov'd, the city as yet having no 
scavengers. 

After some inquiry, I found a poor, industrious 
man, who was willing to undertake keeping the 
pavement clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carry- 
ing off the dirt from before all the neighbours' doors, 
for the sum of sixpence per month, to be paid by 
each house. I then wrote and printed a paper 
setting forth the advantages to the neighbourhood 
that might be obtain'd by this small expense ; the 
greater ease in keeping our houses clean, so much 
dirt not being brought in by people's feet ; the bene- 
fit to the shops by more custom, etc., etc., as buyers 
could more easily get at them ; and by not having, 
in windy weather, the dust blown in upon their 
goods, etc., etc. I sent one of these papers to each 
house, and in a day or two went round to see who 
would subscribe an agreement to pay these six- 

149 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

pences ; it was unanimously sign'd, and for a time 
well executed. All the inhabitants of the city were 
delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that 
surrounded the market, it being a convenience to 
all, and this rais'd a general desire to have all the 
streets paved, and made the people more willing to 
submit to a tax for that purpose. 

After some time I drew a bill for paving the city, 
and brought it into the Assembly. It was just be- 
fore I went to England, in 1757, and did not pass 
till I was gone, 1 and then with an alteration in the 
mode of assessment, which I thought not for the 
better, but with an additional provision for lighting 
as well as paving the streets, which was a great im- 
provement. It was by a private person, the late 
Mr John Clifton, his giving a sample of the utility 
of lamps, by placing one at his door, that the people 
were first impress'd with the idea of enlighting all the 
city. The honour of this public benefit has also been 
ascribM to me, but it belongs truly to that gentle- 
man. I did but follow his example, and have only 
some merit to claim respecting the form of our 
lamps, as differing from the globe lamps we were 
at first supply' d with from London. Those we 
found inconvenient in these respects : they admitted 
no air below ; the smoke, therefore, did not readily 
go out above, but circulated in the globe, lodg'd on 
its inside, and soon obstructed the light they were 
intended to afford ; giving, besides, the daily trouble 
of wiping them clean ; and an accidental stroke on 
one of them would demolish it, and render it totally 
useless. I therefore suggested the composing them 
of four flat panes, with a long funnel above to draw 
up the smoke, and crevices admitting air below, to 
facilitate the ascent of the smoke ; by this means 
they were kept clean, and did not grow dark in a 
few hours, as the London lamps do, but continu'd 

1 See vote*. 
I50 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bright till morning, and an accidental stroke would 
generally break but a single pane, easily repair'd. 

I have sometimes wonder'd that the Londoners 
did not, from the effect holes in the bottom of the 
globe lamps us'd at Vauxhall have in keeping them 
clean, learn to have such holes in their street lamps. 
But, these holes being made for another purpose, 
viz., to communicate flame more suddenly to the 
wick by a little flax hanging down thro' them, the 
other use, of letting in air, seems not to have been 
thought of ; and therefore, after the lamps have been 
lit a few hours, the streets of London are very 
poorly illuminated. 

The mention of these improvements puts me in 
mind of one I propos'd, when in London, to Dr 
Fothergill, who was among the best men I have 
known, and a great promoter of useful projects. I 
had observ'd that the streets, when dry, were never 
swept, and the light dust carried away ; but it was 
suffer' d to accumulate till wet weather reduc'd it to 
mud, and then, after lying some days so deep on 
the pavement that there was no crossing but in paths 
kept clean by poor people with brooms, it was with 
great labour rak'd together and thrown up into carts 
open above, the sides of which sufferM some of the 
slush at every jolt on the pavement to shake out 
and fall, sometimes to the annoyance of foot-pas- 
sengers. The reason given for not sweeping the 
dusty streets was, that the dust would fly into the 
windows of shops and houses. 

An accidental occurrence had instructed me how 
much sweeping might be done in a little time. I 
found at my door in Craven-street, one morning, a 
poor woman sweeping my pavement with a birch 
broom ; she appeared very pale and feeble, as just 
come out of a fit of sickness. I ask'd who employ'd 
her to sweep there ; she said, " Nobody, but I am 
very poor and in distress, and I sweeps before gen- 

151 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tlefolkses doors, and hopes they will give me some- 
thing." I bid her sweep the whole street clean, and 
I would give her a shilling ; this was at nine o'clock ; 
at 12 she came for the shilling. From the slow- 
ness I saw at first in her working, I could scarce 
believe that the work was done so soon, and sent 
my servant to examine it, who reported that the 
whole street was swept perfectly clean, and all the 
dust plac'd in the gutter, which was in the middle ; 
and the next rain wash'd it quite away, so that the 
pavement and even the kennel were perfectly clean. 

I then judg'd that, if that feeble woman could 
sweep such a street in three hours, a strong, active 
man might have done it in half the time. And here 
let me remark the convenience of having but one 
gutter in such a narrow street, running down its 
middle, instead of two, one on each side, near the 
footway ; for where all the rain that falls on a street 
runs from the sides and meets in the middle, it forms 
there a current strong enough to wash away all the 
mud it meets with ; but when divided into two chan- 
nels, it is often too weak to cleanse either, and only 
makes the mud it finds more fluid, so that the 
wheels of carriages and feet of horses throw and 
dash it upon the foot-pavement, which is thereby 
rendered foul and slippery, and sometimes splash it 
upon those who are walking. My proposal, com- 
municated to the good doctor, was as follows : 

" For the more effectual cleaning and keeping 
clean the streets of London and Westminster, it is 
proposed that the several watchmen be contracted 
with to have the dust swept up in dry seasons, and 
the mud rak'd up at other times, each in the several 
streets and lanes of his round ; that they be furnish'd 
with brooms and other proper instruments for these 
purposes, to be kept at their respective stands, ready 
to furnish the poor people they may employ in the 
service. 

152 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

" That in the dry summer months the dust be all 
swept up into heaps at proper distances, before the 
shops and windows of houses are usually opened, 
when the scavengers, with close-covered carts, shall 
also carry it all away. 

" That the mud, when rak'd up, be not left in 
heaps to be spread abroad again by the wheels of 
carriages and trampling of horses, but that the scav- 
engers be provided with bodies of carts, not plac'd 
high upon wheels, but low upon sliders, with lattice 
bottoms, which, being cover'd with straw, will re- 
tain the mud thrown into them, and permit the 
water to drain from it, whereby it will become much 
lighter, water making the greatest part of its weight ; 
these bodies of carts to be plac'd at convenient 
distances, and the mud brought to them in wheel- 
barrows ; they remaining where plac'd till the mud 
is drain'd, and then horses brought to draw them 
away." 

I have since had doubts of the practicability of 
the latter part of this proposal, on account of the 
narrowness of some streets, and the difficulty of 
placing the draining-sleds so as not to encumber too 
much the passage ; but. I am still of opinion that 
the former, requiring the dust to be swept up and 
carry'd away before the shops are open, is very 
practicable in the summer, when the days are long ; 
for, in walking thro* the Strand and Fleet-street one 
morning at seven o'clock, I observ'd there was not 
one shop open, tho' it had been daylight and the 
sun up above three hours ; the inhabitants of London 
chusing voluntarily to live much by candle-light, 
and sleep by sunshine, and yet often complain, a 
little absurdly, of the duty on candles, and the high 
price of tallow. 

Some may think these trifling matters not worth 
minding or relating ; but when they consider that 
tho' dust blown into the eyes of a single person, 

153 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

or into a single shop on a windy day, is but of small 
importance, yet the great number of the instances 
in a populous city, and its frequent repetitions give it 
weight and consequence, perhaps they will not cen- 
sure very severely those who bestow some attention 
to affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human 
felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of 
good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advan- 
tages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a 
poor young man to shave himself, and keep his 
razor in order, you may contribute more to the hap- 
piness of his life than in giving him a thousand 
guineas. The money may be soon spent, the regret 
only remaining of having foolishly consumed it ; 
but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexa- 
tion of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes 
dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors ; he 
shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys 
daily the pleasure of its being done with a good 
instrument. With these sentiments I have hazarded 
the few preceding pages, hoping they may afford 
hints which some time or other may be useful to a 
city I love, having lived many years in it very 
happily, and perhaps to some of our towns in 
America. 

Having been for some time employed by the post- 
master-general of America as his comptroller in 
regulating several offices, and bringing the officers 
to account, I was, upon his death in 1753, appointed, 
jointly with Mr William Hunter, to succeed him, 
by a commission from the postmaster-general in 
England. The American office never had hitherto 
paid any thing to that of Britain. We were to have 
six hundred pounds a year between us, if we could 
make that sum out of the profits of the office. To 
do this, a variety of improvements were necessary ; 
some of these were inevitably at first expensive, so 
that in the first four years the office became above 

154 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

nine hundred pounds in debt to us. But it soon 
after began to repay us ; and before I was displac'd 
by a freak of the ministers, of which I shall speak 
hereafter, we had brought it to yield three times as 
much clear revenue to the crown as the postoffice 
of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction, they 
have receiv'd from it — not one farthing ! 

The business of the postoffice occasion'd my 
taking a journey this year to New England, where 
the College of Cambridge, of their own motion, pre- 
sented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale 
College, in Connecticut, had before made me a 
similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any 
college, I came to partake of their honours. They 
were conferr'd in consideration of my improvements 
and discoveries in the electric branch of natural 
philosophy. 

In i754> war w * tn France being again appre- 
hended, a congress of commissioners from the differ- 
ent colonies was, by order of the Lord of Trade, 
to be assembled at Albany, there to confer with the 
chiefs of the Six Nations concerning the means of 
defending both their country and ours. Governor 
Hamilton, having receiv'd this order, acquainted the 
House with it, requesting they would furnish proper 
presents for the Indians, to be given on this occa- 
sion; and naming the speaker (Mr Norris) and 
myself to join Mr Thomas Penn and Mr Secretary 
Peters as commissioners to act for Pennsylvania. 
The House approv'd the nomination, and provided 
the goods for the present, and tho' they did not much 
like treating out of the provinces ; and we met the 
other commissioners at Albany about the middle of 
June. 

In our way thither, I projected and drew a plan 
for the union of all the colonies under one govern- 
ment, so far as might be necessary for defense, and 
other important general purposes. As we pass'd 

155 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

thro* New York, I had there shown my project to 
Mr James Alexander and Mr Kennedy, two gen- 
tlemen of great knowledge in public affairs, and, 
being fortified by their approbation, I ventur'd to 
lay it before the Congress. It then appeared that 
several of the commissioners had form'd plans of 
the same kind. A previous question was first taken, 
whether a union should be established, which pass'd 
in the affirmative unanimously. A committee was 
then appointed, one member from each colony, to 
consider the several plans and report. Mine hap- 
pen'd to be preferr'd, and, with a few amendments, 
was accordingly reported. 

By this plan the general government was to be 
administered by a president-general, appointed and 
supported by the crown, and a grand council was 
to be chosen by the representatives of the people 
of the several colonies, met in their respective as- 
semblies. The debates upon it in Congress went 
on daily, hand in hand with the Indian business. 
Many objections and difficulties were started, but at 
length they were all overcome, and the plan was 
unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be 
transmitted to the Board of Trade and to the assem- 
blies of the several provinces. Its fate was singu- 
lar : the assemblies did not adopt it, as they all 
thought there was too much prerogative in it, and 
in England it was judg'd to have too much of the 
democratic. The Board of Trade therefore did not 
approve of it, nor recommend it for the approbation 
of his majesty ; but another scheme was form'd, 
supposed to answer the same purpose better, where- 
by the governors of the provinces, with some mem- 
bers of their respective councils, were to meet and 
order the raising of troops, building of forts, etc., 
and to draw on the treasury of Great Britain for the 
expense, which was afterwards to be refunded by 
an act of Parliament laying a tax on America. My 

156 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

plan, with my reasons in support of it, is to be found 
among my political papers that are printed. 

Being the winter following in Boston, I had much 
conversation with Governor Shirley upon both the 
plans. Part of what passed between us on the oc- 
casion may also be seen among those papers. The 
different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan 
makes me suspect that it was really the true me- 
dium 5 and I am still of opinion it would have been 
happy for both sides the water if it had been adopted. 
The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently 
strong to have defended themselves ; there would 
then have been no need of troops from England ; 
of course, the subsequent pretence for taxing 
America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, 
would have been avoided. But such mistakes are 
not new ; history is full of the errors of states and 
princes. 

" Look round the habitable world, how few 
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue ! " 

Those who govern, having much business on 
their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble 
of considering and carrying into execution new 
projects. The best public measures are therefore 
seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the 
occasion. 

The Governor of Pennsylvania, in sending it 
down to the Assembly, express'd his approbation 
of the plan, " as appearing to him to be drawn up 
with great clearness and strength of judgment, and 
therefore recommended it as well worthy of their 
closest and most serious attention." The House, 
however, by the management of a certain member, 
took it up when I happen'd to be absent, which I 
thought not very fair, and reprobated it without 
paying any attention to it at all, to my no small 
mortification. 

157 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

In my journey to Boston this year, I met at New 
York with our new governor, Mr Morris, just 
arrivM there from England, with whom I had been 
before intimately acquainted. He brought a com- 
mission to supersede Mr Hamilton, who, tir'd with 
the disputes his proprietary instructions subjected 
him to, had resign'd. Mr Morris ask'd me if I 
thought he must expect as uncomfortable an admin- 
istration. I said, " No ; you may, on the contrary, 
have a very comfortable one, if you will only take 
care not to enter into any dispute with the Assem- 
bly." " My dear friend," says he, pleasantly, " how 
can you advise my avoiding disputes ? You know 
I love disputing ; it is one of my greatest pleasures ; 
however, to show the regard I have for your coun- 
sel, I promise you I will, if possible, avoid them." 
He had some reason for loving to dispute, being 
eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, gene- 
rally successful in argumentative conversation. He 
had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as 
I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute 
with one another for his diversion, while sitting at 
table after dinner ; but I think the practice was not 
wise ; for, in the course of my observation, these 
disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are 
generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get 
victory sometimes, but they never get good will, 
which would be of more use to them. We parted, 
he going to Philadelphia, and I to Boston. 

In returning, I met at New York with the votes 
of the Assembly, by which it appear'd that, notwith- 
standing his promise to me, he and the House were 
already in high contention ; and it was a continual 
battle between them as long as he retain'd the gov- 
ernment. I had my share of it ; for, as soon as I 
got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on 
every committee for answering his speeches and 
messages, and by the committees a lways desired to 

i 5 8 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

make the drafts. Our answers, as well as his mes- 
sages, were often tart, and sometimes indecently 
abusive ; and, as he knew I wrote for the Assembly, 
one might have imagined that, when we met, we 
could hardly avoid cutting throats ; but he was so 
good-natur'd a man that no personal difference be- 
tween him and me was occasion'd by the contest, 
and we often din'd together. 

One afternoon, in the height of this public quar- 
rel, we met in the street. " Franklin," says he, 
" you must go home with me and spend the even- 
ing; I am to have some company that you will 
like " ; and, taking me by the arm, he led me to his 
house. In gay conversation over our wine, after 
supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd 
the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was pro- 
posed to give him a government, requested it might 
be a government of blacks, as then, if he could not 
agree with his people, he might sell them. One of 
Ills friends, who sat next to me, says, " Franklin, 
why do you continue to side with these damn'd 
Quakers ? Had not you better sell them ? The 
proprietor would give you a good price." "The 
governor," says I, "has not yet blacked them 
enough." He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken 
the Assembly in all his messages, but they wip'd 
off his coloring as fast as he laid it on, and plac'd 
it, in return, thick upon his own face ; so that, find- 
ing he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as 
well as Mr Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and 
quitted the government. 

1 These public quarrels were all at bottom owing 
to the proprietaries, our hereditary governors, who, 
when any expense was to be incurred for the de- 
fense of their province, with incredible meanness 
instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying 
the necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were 
1 My acts in Morris's time, military, etc. — [Marg. nett.~\ 

159 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

in the same act expressly excused ; and they had 
even taken bonds of these deputies to observe 
such instructions. The Assemblies for three years 
held out against this injustice, tho' constrained to 
bend at last. At length Captain Denny, who was 
Governor Morris's successor, ^ventured to disobey 
those instructions ; how that was brought about I 
shall show hereafter. 

But I am got forward too fast with my story : 
there are still some transactions to be mention'd that 
happened during the administration of Governor 
Morris. 

War being in a manner commenced with France, 
the government of Massachusetts Bay projected an 
attack upon Crown Point, and sent Mr Quincy to 
Pennsylvania, and Mr Pownall, afterward Governor 
Pownall, to New York, to solicit assistance. As I 
was in the Assembly, knew its temper, and was Mr 
Quincy's countryman, he appli'd to me for my in- 
fluence and assistance. I dictated his address to 
them, which was well receivM. They voted an aid 
of ten thousand pounds, to be laid out in provisions. 
But the governor refusing his assent to their bill 
(which included this with other sums granted for 
the use of the crown), unless a clause were inserted 
exempting the proprietary estate from bearing any 
part of the tax that would be necessary, the Assem- 
bly, tho' very desirous of making their grant to New 
England effectual, were at a loss how to accomplish 
it. Mr Quincy labored hard with the governor to 
obtain his assent, but he was obstinate. 

I then suggested a method of doing the business 
without the governor, by orders on the trustees of 
the Loan Office, which, by law, the Assembly had 
the right of drawing. There was, indeed, little or 
no money at that time in the office, and therefore I 
propos'd that the orders should be payable in a year, 
and to bear an interest of five per cent. With these 

1 60 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

orders I suppos'd the provisions might easily be 
purchas'd. The Assembly, with very little hesita- 
tion, adopted the proposal. The orders were im- 
mediately printed, and I was one of the committee 
directed to sign and dispose of them. The fund 
for paying them was the interest of all the paper 
currency then extant in the province upon loan, to- 
gether with the revenue arising from the excise, 
which being known to be more than sufficient, they 
obtain'd instant credit, and were not only receiv'd 
in payment for the provisions, but many money'd 
people, who had cash lying by them, vested it in 
those orders, which they found advantageous, as 
they bore interest while upon hand, and might on 
any occasion be used as money ; so that they were 
eagerly all bought up, and in a few weeks none of 
them were to be seen. Thus this important affair 
was by my means compleated. Mr Quincy re- 
turn'd thanks to the Assembly in a handsome 
memorial, went home highly pleas'd with the success 
of his embassy, and ever after bore for me the most 
cordial and affectionate friendship. 

The British government, not chusing to permit 
the union of the colonies as propos'd at Albany, and 
to trust that union with their defense, lest they 
should thereby grow too military, and feel their 
own strength, suspicions and jealousies at this time 
being entertain'd of them, sent over General Brad- 
dock with two regiments of regular English troops 
for that purpose. He landed at Alexandria, in 
Virginia, and thence march' d to Frederictown, in 
Maryland, where he halted for carriages. Our 
Assembly apprehending, from some information, 
that he had conceived violent prejudices against 
them, as averse to the service, wish'd me to wait 
upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster- 
general, under the guise of proposing to settle with 
him the mode of conducting with most celerity and 
l 161 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

certainty the despatches between him and the 
governors of the several provinces, with whom he 
must necessarily have continual correspondence, and 
of which they propos'd to pay the expense. My 
son accompanied me on this journey. 

We found the general at Frederictown, waiting 
impatiently for the return of those he had sent thro' 
the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect 
waggons. I stayed with him several days, din'd 
with him daily, and had full opportunity of remov- 
ing all his prejudices, by the information of whai 
the Assembly had before his arrival actually done, 
and were still willing to do, to facilitate his opera- 
tions. When I was about to depart, the returns of 
waggons to be obtained were brought in, by which 
it appear' d that they amounted only to twenty-five, 
and not all of those were in serviceable condition. 
The general and all the officers were surpris'd, 
declar'd the expedition was then at an end, being 
impossible, and exclaim'd against the ministers for 
ignorantly landing them in a country destitute of the 
means of conveying their stores, baggage, etc., not 
less than one hundred and fifty waggons being 
necessary. 

I happen'd to say I thought it was pity they had 
not been landed rather in Pennsylvania, as in that 
country almost every farmer had his waggon. The 
general eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, 
" Then you, sir, who are a man of interest there, 
can probably procure them for us ; and I beg you 
will undertake it." I ask'd what terms were to be 
offer' d the owners of the waggons ; and I was 
desir'd to put on paper the terms that appeared to 
me necessary. This I did, and they were agreed 
to, and a commission and instructions accordingly 
prepar'd immediately. What those terms were will 
appear in the advertisement I publish'd as soon as 
I arriv'd at Lancaster, which being, from the great 

162 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and sudden effect it produc'd, a piece of some 
curiosity, I shall insert it at length, as follows : 

" Advertisement. 

" Lancaster, April z6 t 1755. 

" Whereas, one hundred and fifty waggons, with 
four horses to each waggon, and fifteen hundred 
saddle or pack horses, are wanted for the service of 
his majesty's forces now about to rendezvous at 
Will's Creek, and his excellency General Braddock 
having been pleased to empower me to contract for 
the hire of the same, I hereby give notice that I 
shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this 
day to next Wednesday evening, and at York from 
next Thursday morning till Friday evening, where 
I shall be ready to agree for waggons and teams, or 
single horses, on the following terms, viz. : I. That 
there shall be paid for each waggon, with four good 
horses and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem ; and 
for each able horse with a pack-saddle, or other 
saddle and furniture, two shillings per diem ; and 
for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen pence 
per diem. 2. That the pay commence from the 
time of their joining the forces at Will's Creek, 
which must be on or before the 20th of May ensu- 
ing, and that a reasonable allowance be paid over 
and above for the time necessary for their travelling 
to Will's Creek and home again after their discharge. 
3. Each waggon and team, and every saddle or 
pack horse, is to be valued by indifferent persons 
chosen between me and the owner ; and in case of 
the loss of any waggon, team, or other horse in the 
service, the price according to such valuation is to 
be allowed and paid. 4. Seven days' pay is to be 
advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of 
each waggon and team, or horse, at the time of con- 
tracting, if required, and the remainder to be paid by 

163 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army, 
at the time of their discharge, or from time to time, 
as it shall be demanded. 5. No drivers of waggons, 
or persons taking care of the hired horses, are on 
any account to be called upon to do the duty of 
soldiers, or be otherwise employed than in con- 
ducting or taking care of their carriages or horses. 
6. All oats, Indian corn, or other forage that 
waggons or horses bring to the camp, more than is 
necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be 
taken for the use of the army, and a reasonable 
price paid for the same. 

" Note. — My son, William Franklin, is em- 
powered to enter into like contracts with any person 
in Cumberland county. B. Franklin." 

" To the inhabitants of the Counties of Lancaster, 
York and Cumberland, 

" Friends and Countrymen, 

'* Being occasionally at the camp at Frederic a 
few days since, I found the general and officers ex- 
tremely exasperated on account of their not being 
supplied with horses and carriages, which had been 
expected from this province, as most able to furnish 
them ; but, through the dissensions between our 
governor and Assembly, money had not been pro- 
vided, nor any steps taken for that purpose. 

" It was proposed to send an armed force im- 
mediately into these counties, to seize as many of 
the best carriages and horses as should be wanted, 
and compel as many persons into the service as 
would be necessary to drive and take care of them. 

" I apprehended that the progress of British 
soldiers through these counties on such an occasion, 
especially considering the temper they are in, and 
their resentment against us, would be attended with 
many and great inconveniences to the inhabitants, 

1 64 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and therefore more willingly took the trouble of 
trying first what might be done by fair and equitable 
means. The people of these back counties have 
lately complained to the Assembly that a sufficient 
currency was wanting ; you have an opportunity of 
receiving and dividing among you a very consider- 
able sum ; for, if the service of this expedition 
should continue, as it is more than probable it will, 
for one hundred and twenty days, the hire of these 
waggons and horses will amount to upward of thirty 
thousand pounds, which will be paid you in silver 
and gold of the king's money. 

" The service will be light and easy, for the army 
will scarce march above twelve miles per day, and 
the waggons and baggage-horses, as they carry those 
things that are absolutely necessary to the welfare 
of the army, must march with the army, and no 
faster ; and are, for the army's sake, always placed 
where they can be most secure, whether in a march 
or in a camp. 

" If you are really, as I believe you are, good 
and loyal subjects to his majesty, you may now do 
a most acceptable service, and make it easy to your- 
selves 5 for three or four of such as can not separately 
spare from the business of their plantations a waggon 
and four horses and a driver, may do it together, 
one furnishing the waggon, another one or two 
horses, and another the driver, and divide the pay 
proportionably between you 5 but if you do not 
this service to your king and country voluntarily, 
when such good pay and reasonable terms are 
offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly sus- 
pected. The king's business must be done ; so 
many brave troops, come so far for your defense, 
must not stand idle through your backwardness to 
do what may be reasonably expected from you ; 
waggons and horses must be had ; violent measures 
will probably be used, and you will be left to seek 

165 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

for a recompense where you can find it, and your 
case, perhaps, be little pitied or regarded. 

" I have no particular interest in this affair, as, 
except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, 
I shall have only my labour for my pains. If this 
method of obtaining the waggons and horses is not 
likely to succeed, I am obliged to send word to the 
general in fourteen days ; and I suppose Sir John 
St Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will 
immediately enter the province for the purpose, 
which I shall be sorry to hear, because I am very 
sincerely and truly your friend and well-wisher, 

" B. Franklin." 

I received of the general about eight hundred 
pounds, to be disbursed in advance-money to the 
waggon owners, etc. ; but that sum being insuffi- 
cient, I advanc'd upward of two hundred pounds 
more, and in two weeks the one hundred and fifty 
waggons, with two hundred and fifty-nine carrying 
horses, were on their march for the camp. The 
advertisement promised payment according to the 
valuation, in case any waggon or horse should be 
lost. The owners, however, alleging they did not 
know General Braddock, or what dependence might 
be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the 
performance, which I accordingly gave them. 

While I was at the camp, supping one evening 
with the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he 
represented to me his concern for the subalterns, 
who, he said, were generally not in affluence, and 
could ill afford, in this dear country, to lay in the 
stores that might be necessary in so long a march, 
thro' a wilderness, where nothing was to be pur- 
chas'd. I commiserated their case, and resolved 
to endeavor procuring them some relief. I said 
nothing, however, to him of my intention, but wrote 
the next morning to the committee of the Assembly, 

166 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

who had the disposition of some public money, 
warmly recommending the case of these officers to 
their consideration, and proposing that a present 
should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments. 
My son, who had some experience of a camp life, 
and of its wants, drew up a list for me, which 
I enclos'd in my letter. The committee approv'd, 
and used such diligence that, conducted by my son, 
the stores arrived at the camp as soon as the 
waggons. They consisted of twenty parcels, each 
containing 

6 lbs. loaf sugar. i Gloucester cheese. 

6 lbs. good Muscovado do, I kegg containing 20 lbs. good 
1 lb. good green tea. butter. 

1 lb. good bohea do. 2 doz. old Madeira wine. 

6 lbs. good ground coffee. 2 gallons Jamaica spirits. 

6 lbs. chocolate. 1 bottle flour of mustard 

1-2 cwt. best white biscuit. 2 well-cur'd hams. 

1-2 lb. pepper. 1-2 dozen dry'd tongues, 
x quart best white wine 6 lbs. rice, 

vinegar. 6 lbs. raisins. 

These twenty parcels, well pack'd, were placed 
on as many horses, each parcel, with the horse, 
being intended as a present for one officer. They 
were very thankfully receiv'd, and the kindness 
acknowledg'd by letters to me from the colonels of 
both regiments, in the most grateful terms. The 
general, too, was highly satisfied with my conduct in 
procuring him the waggons, etc., and readily paid 
my account of disbursements, thanking me repeatedly, 
and requesting my farther assistance in sending pro- 
visions after him. I undertook this also, and was 
busily employ'd in it till we heard of his defeat, 
advancing for the service of my own money, upwards 
of one thousand pounds sterling, of which I sent 
him an account. It came to his hands, luckily for 
me, a few days before the battle, and he return'd me 
immediately an order on the paymaster for the round 
sum of one thousand pounds, leaving the remainder 

167 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

to the next account. I consider this payment as 
good luck, having never been able to obtain that 
remainder, of which more hereafter. 

This general was, I think, a brave man, and might 
probably have made a figure as a good officer in 
some European war. But he had too much self- 
confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of 
regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans 
and Indians. George Croghan, our Indian inter- 
preter, join'd him on his march with one hundred of 
those people, who might have been of great use to 
his army as guides, scouts, etc., if he had treated 
them kindly ; but he slighted and neglected them, 
and they gradually left him. 

In conversation with him one day, he was giving 
me some account of his intended progress. " After 
taking Fort Duquesne," says he, " I am to proceed 
to Niagara ; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if 
the season will allow time ; and I suppose it will, for 
Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four 
days ; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my 
march to Niagara." Having before revolv'd in my 
mind the long line his army must make in their 
march by a very narrow road, to be cut for them 
thro' the woods and bushes, and also what I had 
read of a former defeat of fifteen hundred French, 
who invaded the Iroquois country, I had conceiv'd 
some doubts and some fears for the event of the 
campaign. But I ventur'd only to say, "To be 
sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with 
these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, 
that place not yet completely fortified, and as we 
hear with no very strong garrison, can probably 
make but a short resistance. The only clanger I 
apprehend of obstruction to your march is from 
ambuscades of Indians, who, by constant practice, 
are dexterous in laying and executing them ; and the 
slender line, near four miles long, which your army 

168 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

must make, may expose it to be attack' d by surprise 
in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several 
pieces, which, from their distance, can not come up 
in time to support each other." 

He smil'd at my ignorance, and reply'd, "These 
savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your 
raw American militia, but upon the king's regular 
and disciplin'd troops, sir, it is impossible they 
should make any impression." I was conscious of an 
impropriety in my disputing with a military man in 
matters of his profession, and said no more. The 
enemy, however, did not take the advantage of his 
army which I apprehended its long line of march 
expos'd it to, but let it advance without interruption 
till within nine miles of the place ; and then, when 
more in a body (for it had just passed a river, where 
the front had halted till all were come over), and in 
a more open part of the woods than any it had pass'd, 
attack'd its advanced guard by a heavy fire from 
behind trees and bushes, which was the first intel- 
ligence the general had of an enemy's being near 
him. This guard being disordered, the general 
hurried the troops up to their assistance, which was 
done in great confusion, thro' waggons, baggage, 
and cattle ; and presently the fire came upon their 
flank : the officers, being on horseback, were more 
easily distinguish'd, pick'd out as marks, and fell 
very fast ; and the soldiers were crowded together 
in a huddle, having or hearing no orders, and stand- 
ing to be shot at till two-thirds of them were killed ; 
and then, being seiz'd with a panick, the whole fled 
with precipitation. 

The waggoners took each a horse out of his team 
and scamper'd ; their example was immediately fol- 
lowed by others ; so that all the waggons, provisions, 
artillery, and stores were left to the enemy. The 
general, being wounded, was brought off with diffi- 
culty; his secretary, Mr Shirley, was killed by his 

169 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

side ; and out of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were 
killed or wounded, and seven hundred and fourteen 
men killed out of eleven hundred. These eleven 
hundred had been picked men from the whole army ; 
the rest had been left behind with Colonel Dunbar, 
who was to follow with the heavier part of the 
stores, provisions, and baggage. The flyers, not 
being pursu'd, arrivM at Dunbar's camp, and the 
panick they brought with them instantly seiz'd him 
and all his people ; and, tho' he had now above one 
thousand men, and the enemy who had beaten 
Braddock did not at most exceed four hundred 
Indians and French together, instead of proceeding, 
and endeavoring to recover some of the lost honour, 
he ordered all the stores, ammunition, etc., to be 
destroy'd, that he might have more horses to assist 
his flight towards the settlements, and less lumber to 
remove. He was there met with requests from the 
governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, 
that he would post his troops on the frontier, so as 
to afford some protection to the inhabitants ; but he 
continu'd his hasty march thro* all the country, not 
thinking himself safe till he arriv'd at Philadelphia, 
where the inhabitants could protect him. This 
whole transaction gave us Americans the first sus- 
picion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of 
British regulars had not been well founded. 

In their first march, too, from their landing till 
they got beyond the settlements, they had plundered 
and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some 
poor families, besides insulting, abusing, and con- 
fining the people if they remonstrated. This was 
enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders, 
if we had really wanted any. How different was 
the conduct of our French friends in 1 78 1, who, 
during a march thro' the most inhabited part of 
our country from Rhode Island to Virginia, near 
seven hundred miles, occasioned not the smallest 

170 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

complaint for the loss of a pig, a chicken, or 
even an apple. 

Captain Orme, who was one of the general's 
aids-de-camp, and, being grievously wounded, was 
brought off with him, and continu'd with him to 
his death, which happen'd in a few days, told 
me that he was totally silent all the first day, 
and at night only said, " Who ivould have thought 
it?" That he was silent again the following 
day, saying only at last, " We shall better knoiv 
hoiv to deal with them another time " ; and dy'd in 
a few minutes after. 

The secretary's papers, with all the general's 
orders, instructions, and correspondence, falling 
into the enemy's hands, they selected and trans- 
lated into French a number of the articles, which 
they printed, to prove the hostile intentions of 
the British court before the declaration of war. 
Among these I saw some letters of the general 
to the ministry, speaking highly of the great 
service I had rendered the army, and recom- 
mending me to their notice. David Hume, too, 
who was some years after secretary to Lord 
Hertford, when minister in France, and afterward 
to General Conway, when secretary of state, told 
me he had seen among the papers in that office, 
letters from Braddock highly recommending me. 
But, the expedition having been unfortunate, my 
service, it seems, was not thought of much value, 
for those recommendations were never of any use 
to me. 

As to rewards from himself, I ask'd only one, 
which was, that he would give orders to his officers 
not to enlist any more of our bought servants, and 
that he would discharge such as had been already 
enlisted. This he readily granted, and several were 
accordingly return'd to their masters, on my applica- 
tion. Dunbar, when the command devolv'd on him 5 

171 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was not so generous. He being at Philadelphia, on 
his retreat, or rather flight, I apply'd to him for the 
discharge of the servants of three poor farmers of 
Lancaster county that he had enlisted, reminding him 
of the late general's orders on that head. He promised 
me that, if the masters would come to him at Trenton, 
where he should be in a few days on his march to 
New York, he would there deliver their men to 
them. They accordingly were at the expense and 
trouble of going to Trenton, and there he refus'd 
to perform his promise, to their great loss and 
disappointment. 

As soon as the loss of the waggons and horses 
was generally known, all the owners came upon me 
for the valuation which I had given bond to pay. 
Their demands gave me a great deal of trouble, 
my acquainting them that the money was ready in 
the paymaster's hands, but that orders for paying it 
must first be obtained from General Shirley, and 
my assuring them that I had apply'd to that general 
by letter ; but, he being at a distance, an answei 
could not soon be receiv'd, and they must have 
patience, all this was not sufficient to satisfy, and 
some began to sue me. General Shirley at 
length relieved me from this terrible situation by 
appointing commissioners to examine the claims, 
and ordering payment. They amounted to near 
twenty thousand pound, which to pay would 
have ruined me. 

Before we had the news of this defeat, the two 
Doctors Bond came to me with a subscription 
paper for raising money to defray the expense of 
a grand firework, which it was intended to exhibit 
at a rejoicing on receipt of the news of our taking 
Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said it would, 
I thought, be time enough to prepare for the re- 
joicing when we knew we should have occasion to 
rejoice. They seem'd surpris'd that I did not 

172 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

immediately comply with their proposal. " Why 
the d — 1!" says one of them, "you surely don't 
suppose that the fort will not be taken ? " "I 
don't know that it will not be taken, but I know 
that the events of war are subject to great un- 
certainty." I gave them the reasons of my doubt- 
ing ; the subscription was dropt, and the projectors 
thereby missed the mortification they would have 
undergone if the firework had been prepared. Dr 
Bond, on some other occasion afterward, said that 
he did not like Franklin's forebodings. 

Governor Morris, who had continually worried 
the Assembly with message after message before 
the defeat of Braddock, to beat them into the 
making of acts to raise money for the defense 
of the province, without taxing, among others, 
the proprietary estates, and had rejected all their 
bills for not having such an exempting clause, 
now redoubled his attacks with more hope of 
success, the danger and necessity "being greater. 
The Assembly, however, continu'd firm, believing 
they had justice on their side, and that it would 
be giving up an essential right if they suffered 
the governor to amend their money-bills. In one 
of the last, indeed, which was for granting fifty 
thousand pounds, his propos'd amendment was only 
of a single word. The bill express'd " that all 
estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, those 
of the proprietaries not excepted." His amendment 
was, for not read only, a small, but very material 
alteration. However, when the news of this disaster 
reached England, our friends there, whom we had 
taken care to furnish with all the Assembly's answers 
to the governor's messages, rais'd a clamor against 
the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice in 
giving their governor such instructions ; some going 
so far as to say that, by obstructing the defense of 
their province, they forfeited their right to it. They 

173 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

were intimidated by this, and sent orders to their 
receiver - general to add five thousand pounds of 
their money to whatever sum might be given by the 
Assembly for such purpose. 

This, being notified to the House, was accepted 
in lieu of their share of a general tax, and a new 
bill was form'd, with an exempting clause, which 
passed accordingly. By this act I was appointed 
one of the commissioners for disposing of the money, 
sixty thousand pounds. I had been active in model- 
ling the bill and procuring its passage, and had, 
at the same time, drawn a bill for establishing and 
disciplining a voluntary militia, which I carried thro' 
the House without much difficulty, as care was taken 
in it to leave the Quakers at their liberty. To pro- 
mote the association necessary to form the militia, I 
wrote a dialogue, 1 stating and answering all the 
objections I could think of to such a militia, 
which was printed, and had, as I thought, great 
efFect. 

While the several companies in the city and 
country were forming, and learning their exercise, 
the governor prevail'd with me to take charge of 
our North-western frontier, which was infested by 
the enemy, and provide for the defense of the in- 
habitants by raising troops and building a line of 
forts. I undertook this military business, tho* I 
did not conceive myself well qualified for it. He 
gave me a commission with full powers, and a 
parcel of blank commissions for officers, to be 
given to whom I thought fit. I had but little 
difficulty in raising men, having soon five hundred 
and sixty under my command. My son, who had 
in the preceding war been an officer in the army 
rais'd against Canada, was my aid-de-camp, and of 
great use to me. The Indians had burned Gnaden- 

1 This dialogue and the militia act are in the Gentleman's 
Magazine for February and March, 1756. — [Marg. hcU.~\ 

174 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hut, a village settled by the Moravians, and massacred 
the inhabitants ; but the place was thought a good 
situation for one of the forts. 

In order to march thither, I assembled the com- 
panies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those 
people. I was surprised to find it in so good a pos- 
ture of defense j the destruction of Gnadenhut had 
made them apprehend danger. The principal build- 
ings were defended by a stockade ; they had pur- 
chased a quantity of arms and ammunition from 
New York, and had even plac'd quantities of small 
paving stones between the windows of their high 
stone houses, for their women to throw down upon 
the heads of any Indians that should attempt to force 
into them. The armed brethren, too, kept watch, 
and reliev'd as methodically as in any garrison town. 
In conversation with the bishop, Spangenberg, I 
mention' d this my surprise ; for, knowing they had 
obtained an act of Parliament exempting them from 
military duties in the colonies, I had supposed they 
were conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms. 
He answer'd me that it was not one of their es- 
tablished principles, but that, at the time of their 
obtaining that act, it was thought to be a principle 
with many of their people. On this occasion, how- 
ever, they, to their surprise, found it adopted by but 
a few. It seems they were either deceiv'd in them- 
selves, or deceiv'd the Parliament ; but common 
sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes be 
too strong for whimsical opinions. 

It was the beginning of January when we set out 
upon this business of building forts. I sent one de- 
tachment toward the Minisink, with instructions to 
erect one for the security of that upper part of the 
country, and another to the lower part, with similar 
instructions ; and I concluded to go myself with the 
rest of my force to Gnadenhut, where a fort was 
tho't more immediately necessary. The Moravians 

175 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

procur'd me five waggons for our tools, stores, 
baggage, etc. 

Just before we left Bethlehem, eleven farmers, 
who had been driven from their plantations by the 
Indians, came to me requesting a supply of firearms, 
that they might go back and fetch off their cattle. 
I gave them each a gun with suitable ammunition. 
We had not march'd many miles before it began to 
rain, and it continued raining all day ; there were no 
habitations on the road to shelter us, till we arriv'd 
near night at the house of a German, where, and in his 
barn, we were all huddled together, as wet as water 
could make us. It was well we were not attack' d in 
our march, for our arms were of the most ordinary 
sort, and our men could not keep their gun locks 
dry. The Indians are dextrous in contrivances for 
that purpose, which we had not. They met that day 
the eleven poor farmers above mentioned, and killed 
ten of them. The one who escap'd inform' d that 
his and his companions' guns would not go off, the 
priming being wet with the rain. 

The next day being fair, we continu'd our march, 
and arriv'd at the desolated Gnadenhut. There was 
a saw-mill near, round which were left several piles 
of boards, with which we soon hutted ourselves ; an 
operation the more necessary at that inclement season, 
as we had no tents. Our first work was to bury 
more effectually the dead we found there, who had 
been half interr'd by the country people. 

The next morning our fort was plann'd and mark'd 
out, the circumference measuring four hundred and 
fifty-five feet, which would require as many palisades 
to be made of trees, one with another, of a foot 
diameter each. Our axes, of which we had seventy, 
were immediately set to work to cut down trees, 
and, our men being dextrous in the use of them, 
great despatch was made. Seeing the trees fall so 
fast, I had the curiosity to look at my watch when 

176 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

two men began to cut at a pine ; in six minutes they 
had it upon the ground, and I found it of fourteen 
inches diameter. Each pine made three palisades 
of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While 
these were preparing, our other men dug a trench 
all round, of three feet deep, in which the palisades 
were to be planted ; and, our waggons, the bodys 
being taken off, and the fore and hind wheels sepa- 
rated by taking out the pin which united the two 
parts of the perch, we had ten carriages, with two 
horses each, to bring the palisades from the woods 
to the spot. When they were set up, our carpen- 
ters built a stage of boards all round within, about 
six feet high, for the men to stand on when to fire 
thro' the loopholes. We had one swivel gun, which 
we mounted on one of the angles, and fir'd it as soon 
as fix'd, to let the Indians know, if any were within 
hearing, that we had such pieces ; and thus our fort, 
if such a magnificent name may be given to so 
miserable a stockade, was finish'd in a week, though 
it rain'd so hard every other day that the men could 
not work. 

This gave me occasion to observe, that, when 
men are employ'd, they are best content'd ; for on 
the days they worked they were good-natur'd and 
cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done 
a good day's work, they spent the evening jollily ; 
but on our idle days they were mutinous and quar- 
relsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, 
etc., and in continual ill-humor, which put me in 
mind of a sea-captain, whose rule it was to keep his 
men constantly at work ; and, when his mate once 
told him that they had done every thing, and there 
was nothing further to employ them about, " 0/6," 
says he, " make them scour the anchor" 

This kind of fort, however contemptible, is a 
sufficient defense against Indians, who have no 
cannon. Finding ourselves now posted securely, 
m 177 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

and having a place to retreat to on occasion, we 
ventured out in parties to scour the adjacent country. 
We met with no Indians, but we found the places 
on the neighboring hills where they had lain to 
watch our proceedings. There was an art in their 
contrivance of those places that seems worth mention. 
It being winter, a lire was necessary for them ; but 
a common fire on the surface of the ground would 
by its light have discover'd their position at a dis- 
tance. They had therefore dug holes in the ground 
about three feet diameter, and somewhat deeper ; 
we saw where they had with their hatchets cut off 
the charcoal from the sides of burnt logs lying in 
the woods. With these coals they had made small 
fires in the bottom of the holes, and we observM 
among the weeds and grass the prints of their bodies, 
made by their laying all round, with their legs hanging 
down in the holes to keep their feet warm, which, 
with them, is an essential point. This kind of fire, 
so manag*d, could not discover them, either by its 
light, flame, sparks, or even smoke : it appealed that 
their number was not great, and it seems they saw 
we were too many to be attacked by them with 
prospect of advantage. 

We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian 
minister, Mr Beatty, who complained to me that 
the men did not generally attend his prayers and 
exhortations. When they enlisted, they were pro- 
mised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a 
day, which was punctually serv'd out to them, half 
in the morning, and the other half in the evening ; 
and I observ'd they were as punctual in attending to 
receive it ; upon which I said to Mr Beatty, " It is, 
perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act 
as steward of the rum, but if you were to deal it out 
and only just after prayers, you would have them 
all about you." He liked the tho't, undertook the 
office, and, with the help of a few hands to measure 

178 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never 
were prayers more generally and more punctually 
attended ; so that I thought this method preferable 
to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for 
non-attendance on divine service. 

I had hardly finish'd this business, and got my 
fort well stor'd with provisions, when I received a 
letter from the governor, acquainting me that he had 
call'd the Assembly, and wished my attendance 
there, if the posture of affairs on the frontiers was 
such that my remaining there was no longer neces- 
sary. My friends, too, of the Assembly, pressing 
me by their letters to be, if possible, at the meeting, 
and my three intended forts being now compleated, 
and the inhabitants contented to remain on their 
farms under that protection, I resolved to return ; 
the more willingly, as a New England officer, 
Colonel Clapham, experienced in Indian war, being 
on a visit to our establishment, consented to accept 
the command. I gave him a commission, and, parad- 
ing the garrison, had it read before them, and intro- 
duce him to them as an officer who, from his skill 
in military affairs, was much more fit to command 
them than myself ; and, giving them a little exhor- 
tation, took my leave. I was escorted as far as 
Bethlehem, where I rested a few days to recover 
from the fatigue I had undergone. The first night, 
being in a good bed, I could hardly sleep, it was so 
different from my hard lodging on the floor of our 
hut at Gnaden wrapt only in a blanket or two. 

While at Bethlehem, I inquir'd a little into the 
practice of the Moravians : some of them had 
accompanied me, and all were very kind to me. I 
found they work'd for a common stock, eat at 
common tables, and slept in common dormitories, 
great numbers together. In the dormitories I ob- 
served loopholes, at certain distances all along just 
under the ceiling, which I thought judiciously placed 

!79 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

for change of air. I was at their church, where I 
was entertain'd with good musick, the organ being 
accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, clarinets, 
etc. I understood that their sermons were not 
usually preached to mixed congregations of men, 
women, and children, as is our common practice, but 
that they assembled sometimes the married men, 
at other times their wives, then the young men, the 
young women, and the little children, each division 
by itself. The sermon I heard was to the latter, 
who came in and were plac'd in rows on benches ; 
the boys under the conduct of a young man, their 
tutor, and the girls conducted by a young woman. 
The discourse seem'd well adapted to their capacities, 
and was deliver'd in a pleasing, familiar manner, 
coaxing them, as it were, to be good. They 
behav'd very orderly, but looked pale and unhealthy, 
which made me suspect they were kept too much 
within doors, or not allow'd sufficient exercise. 

I inquir'd concerning the Moravian marriages, 
whether the report was true that they were by lot. 
I was told that lots were us'd only in particular 
cases ; that generally, when a young man found 
himself dispos'd to marry, he inform'd the elders 
of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that 
govern'd the young women. As these elders of the 
different sexes were well acquainted with the tem- 
pers and dispositions of their respective pupils, they 
could best judge what matches were suitable, and 
their judgments were generally acquiesc'd in j but 
if, for example, it should happen that two or three 
young women were found to be equally proper for 
the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I 
objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual 
choice of the parties, some of them may chance to 
be very unhappy. " And so they may," answer'd 
my informer, " if you let the parties chuse for them- 
selves ; " which, indeed, I could not deny. 

1 80 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Being returned to Philadelphia, I found the asso- 
ciation went on swimmingly, the inhabitants that 
were not Quakers having pretty generally come into 
it, formed themselves into companies, and chose 
their captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, according 
to the new law. Dr B. visited me, and gave me 
an account of the pains he had taken to spread a 
general good liking to the law, and ascribed much to 
those endeavors. I had had the vanity to ascribe 
all to my Dialogue; however, not knowing but that 
he might be in the right, I let him enjoy his opinion, 
which I take to be generally the best way in such 
cases. The officers, meeting, chose me to be colonel 
of the regiment, which I this time accepted. I for- 
get how many companies we had, but we paraded 
about twelve hundred well-looking men, with a 
company of artillery, who had been furnished with 
six brass field-pieces, which they had become so 
expert in the use of as to fire twelve times in a 
minute. The first time I reviewed my regiment 
they accompanied me to my house, and would salute 
me with some rounds fired before my door, which 
shook down and broke several glasses of my elec- 
trical apparatus. And my new honour proved not 
much less brittle ; for all our commissions were soon 
after broken by a repeal of the law in England. 

During this short time of my colonelship, being 
about to set out on a journey to Virginia, the officers 
of my regiment took it into their heads that it would 
be proper for them to escort me out of town, as far 
as the Lower Ferry. Just as I was getting on horse- 
back they came to my door, between thirty and 
forty, mounted, and all in their uniforms. I had 
not been previously acquainted with the project, or 
I should have prevented it, being naturally averse 
to the assuming of state on any occasion ; and I was 
a good deal chagrin* d at their appearance, as I 
could not avoid their accompanying me. What 

181 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

made it worse was, that, as soon as we began to 
move, they drew their swords and rode with them 
naked all the way. Somebody wrote an account 
of this to the proprietor, and it gave him great 
offense. No such honor had been paid him when 
in the province, nor to any of his governors ; and 
he said it was only proper to princes of the blood 
royal, which may be true for aught I know, who 
was, and still am, ignorant of the etiquette in such 
cases. 

This silly affair, however, greatly increased his 
rancour against me, which was before not a little, 
on account of my conduct in the Assembly respect- 
ing the exemption of his estate from taxation, which 
I had always oppos'd very warmly, and not with- 
out severe reflections on his meanness and injustice 
of contending for it. He accused me to the minis- 
try as being the great obstacle to the king's service, 
preventing, by my influence in the House, the proper 
form of the bills for raising money, and he instanced 
this parade with my officers as a proof of my having 
an intention to take the government of the province 
out of his hands by force. He also applied to Sir 
Everard Fawkener, the postmaster-general, to de- 
prive me of my office ; but it had no other effect 
than to procure from Sir Everard a gentle ad- 
monition. 

Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between 
the governor and the House, in which I, as a mem- 
ber, had so large a share, there still subsisted a civil 
intercourse between that gentleman and myself, and 
we never had any personal difference. I have some- 
times since thought that his little or no resentment 
against me, for the answers it was known I drew up 
to his messages, might be the effect of professional 
habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might con- 
sider us both as merely advocates for contending 
clients in a suit, he for the proprietaries and I for 

182 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the Assembly. He would, therefore, sometimes call 
in a friendly way to advise with me on difficult 
points, and sometimes, tho' not often, take my 
advice. 

We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army 
with provisions ; and, when the shocking news 
arrived of his defeat, the governor sent in haste for 
me, to consult with him on measures for preventing 
the desertion of the back counties. I forget now 
the advice I gave ; but I think it was, that Dunbar 
should be written to, and prevail'd with, if possible, 
to post his troops on the frontiers for their protec- 
tion, till, by re-enforcements from the colonies, he 
might be able to proceed on the expedition. And, 
after my return from the frontier, he would have 
had me undertake the conduct of such an expedi- 
tion with provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort 
Duquesne, Dunbar and his men being otherwise 
employed ; and he proposed to commission me as 
general. I had not so good an opinion of my mili- 
tary abilities as he profess'd to have, and I believe 
his professions must have exceeded his real senti- 
ments ; but probably he might think that my popu- 
larity would facilitate the raising of the men, and 
my influence in Assembly, the grant of money to 
pay them, and that, perhaps, without taxing the 
proprietary estate. Finding me not so forward to 
engage as he expected, the project was dropt, and 
he soon after left the government, being superseded 
by Captain Denny. 

Before I proceed in relating the part I had in 
public affairs under this new governor's adminis- 
tration, it may not be amiss here to give some 
account of the rise and progress of my philosophical 
reputation. 

In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr 
Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and 
show*d me some electric experiments. They were 

183 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

imperfectly perform'd, as he was not very expert ; 
but, being on a subject quite new to me, they 
equally surpris'd and pleased me. Soon after my 
return to Philadelphia, our library company receiv'd 
from Mr P. Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society 
of London, a present of a glass tube, with some 
account of the use of it in making such experiments. 
I eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I 
had seen at Boston ; and, by much practice, acquir'd 
great readiness in performing those, also, which we 
had an account of from England, adding a number 
of new ones. I say much practice, for my house 
was continually full, for some time, with people who 
came to see these new wonders. 

To divide a little this incumbrance among my 
friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be 
blown at our glass-house, with which they furnish'd 
themselves, so that we had at length several per- 
formers. Among these, the principal was Mr 
Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbor, who, being out 
of business, I encouraged to undertake showing the 
experiments for money, and drew up for him two 
lectures, in which the experiments were rang'd in 
such order, and accompanied with such explanations 
in such method, as that the foregoing should assist 
in comprehending the following. He procur'd an 
elegant apparatus for the purpose, in which all the 
little machines that I had roughly made for myself 
were nicely form'd by instrument-makers. His 
lectures were well attended, and gave great satis- 
faction ; and after some time he went thro' the 
colonies, exhibiting them in every capital town, and 
pick'd up some money. In the West India islands, 
indeed, it was with difficulty the experiments could 
be made, from the general moisture of the air. 

Oblig'd as we were to Mr Collinson for his pre- 
sent of the tube, etc., I thought it right he should 
be inform'd of our success in using it, and wrote 

184 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him several letters containing accounts of our experi- 
ments. He got them read in the Royal Society, 
where they were not at first thought worth so much 
notice as to be printed in their Transactions. One 
paper, which I wrote for Mr Kinnersley, on the 
sameness of lightning with electricity, I sent to Dr 
Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one of the 
members also of that society, who wrote me word 
that it had been read, but was laughed at by the 
connoisseurs. The papers, however, being shown 
to Dr Fothergill, he thought them of too much 
value to be stifled, and advis'd the printing of them. 
Mr Collinson then gave them to Cave for publica- 
tion in his Gentleman's Magazine ; but he chose to 
print them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr Fother- 
gill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems, judged 
rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived 
afterward they swell'd, to a quarto volume, which 
has had five editions, and cost him nothing for 
copy-money. 

It was, however, some time before those papers 
were much taken notice of in England. A copy of 
them happening to fall into the hands of the Count 
de BufFon, a philosopher deservedly of great reputa- 
tion in France, and, indeed, all over Europe, he 
prevailed with M. Dalibard to translate them into 
French, and they were printed at Paris. The pub- 
lication offended the Abbe Nollet, preceptor in 
Natural Philosophy to the royal family, and an 
able experimenter, who had form'd and publish'd a 
theory of electricity, which then had the general 
vogue. He could not at first believe that such a 
work came from America, and said it must have 
been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to decry 
his system. Afterwards, having been assur'd that 
there really existed such a person as Franklin at 
Philadelphia, which he had doubted, he wrote and 
published a volume of Letters, chiefly address'd to 

185 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

me, defending his theory, and denying the verity 
of my experiments, and of the positions deduc'd 
from them. 

I once purpos'd answering the abbe, and actually 
began the answer ; but, on consideration that my 
writings contain'd a description of experiments which 
any one might repeat and verify, and if not to be 
verifl'd, could not be defended ; or of observations 
offer'd as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatic- 
ally, therefore not laying me under any obligation 
to defend them ; and reflecting that a dispute between 
two persons, writing in different languages, might 
be lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence 
misconceptions of one another's meaning, much of 
one of the abbe's letters being founded on an error 
in the translation, I concluded to let my papers shift 
for themselves, believing it was better to spend 
what time I could spare from public business in 
making new experiments, than in disputing about 
those already made. I therefore never answered 
M. Nollet, and the event gave me no cause to repent 
my silence ; for my friend M. le Roy, of the Royal 
Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted 
him ; my book was translated into the Italian, 
German, and Latin languages ; and the doctrine it 
contain'd was by degrees universally adopted by the 
philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the 
abbe ; so that he lived to see himself the last of his 

sect, except Monsieur B , of Paris, his eleve 

and immediate disciple. 

What gave my book the more sudden and general 
celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed 
experiments, made by Messrs Dalibard and De Lor 
at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. 
This engag'd the public attention every where. M. 
de Lor, who had an apparatus for experimental 
philosophy, and lectur'd in that branch of science, 
undertook to repeat what he called the Philadelphia 

186 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Experiments ; and, after they were performed before 
the king and court, all the curious of Paris flocked 
to see them. I will not swell this narrative with an 
account of that capital experiment, nor of the infinite 
pleasure I receiv'd in the success of a similar one I 
made soon after with a kite at Philadelphia, as both 
are to be found in the histories of electricity. 

Dr Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, 
wrote to a friend, who was of the Royal Society, an 
account of the high esteem my experiments were in 
among the learned abroad, and of their wonder that 
my writings had been so little noticed in England. 
The society, on this, resum'd the consideration of 
the letters that had been read to them ; and the 
celebrated Dr Watson drew up a summary account 
of them, and of all I had afterwards sent to England 
on the subject, which he accompanied with some 
praise of the writer. This summary was then 
printed in their Transactions ; and some members of 
the society in London, particularly the very ingenious 
Mr Canton, having verified the experiment of pro- 
curing lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod, 
and acquainting them with the success, they soon 
made me more than amends for the slight with 
which they had before treated me. Without my 
having made any application for that honor, they 
chose me a member, and voted that I should be 
excus'd the customary payments, which would have 
amounted to twenty-five guineas ; and ever since 
have given me their Transactions gratis. They also 
presented me with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey 
Copley for the year 1 753, the delivery of which was 
accompanied by a very handsome speech of the 
president, Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was highly 
honoured. 

Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over 
for me the before-mentioned medal from the Royal 
Society, which he presented to me at an entertain- 

187 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ' 

ment given him by the city. He accompanied it 
with very polite expressions of his esteem for me, 
having, as he said, been long acquainted with my 
character. After dinner, when the company, as was 
customary at that time, were engag'd in drinking, 
he took me aside into another room, and acquainted 
me that he had been advis'd by his friends in 
England to cultivate a friendship with me, as one 
who was capable of giving him the best advice, and 
of contributing most effectually to the making his 
administration easy ; that he therefore desired of all 
things to have a good understanding with me, and 
he begg'd me to be assur'd of his readiness on all 
occasions to render me every service that might be 
in his power. He said much to me, also, of the 
proprietor's good disposition towards the province, 
and of the advantage it might be to us all, and to 
me in particular, if the opposition that had been 
so long continu'd to his measures was dropt, and 
harmony restor'd between him and the people ; in 
effecting which, it was thought no one could be 
more serviceable than myself; and I might depend 
on adequate acknowledgments and recompenses, 
etc., etc. The drinkers, finding we did not return 
immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of 
Madeira, which the governor made liberal use of, 
and in proportion became more profuse of his 
solicitations and promises. 

My answers were to this purpose: that my cir- 
cumstances, thanks to God, were such as to make 
proprietary favours unnecessary to me ; and that, 
being a member of the Assembly, I could not 
possibly accept of any ; that, however, I had no 
personal enmity to the proprietary, and that, when- 
ever the public measures he propos'd should appear 
to be for the good of the people, no one should 
espouse and forward them more zealously than 
myself; my past opposition having been founded on 

1 88 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

this, that the measures which had been urged were 
evidently intended to serve the proprietary interest, 
with great prejudice to that of the people ; that I 
was much obliged to him (the governor) for his 
professions of regard to me, and that he might rely 
on every thing in my power to make his administra- 
tion as easy as possible, hoping at the same time 
that he had not brought with him the same unfor- 
tunate instruction his predecessor had been hamper'd 
with. 

On this he did not then explain himself; but 
when he afterwards came to do business with the 
Assembly, they appear'd again, the disputes were 
renewed, and I was as active as ever in the opposi- 
tion, being the penman, first, of the request to have 
a communication of the instructions, and then of the 
remarks upon them, which may be found in the 
votes of the time, and in the Historical Review I 
afterward publish'd. But between us personally 
no enmity arose ; we were often together ; he was a 
man of letters, had seen much of the world, and was 
very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. He 
gave me the first information that my old friend 
Jas. Ralph was still alive; that he was esteem'd one 
of the best political writers in England ; had been 
employ'd in the dispute between Prince Frederic and 
the king, and had obtain* d a pension of three hundred 
a year ; that his reputation was indeed small as a 
poet, Pope having damned his poetry in the 
Dunciad ; but his prose was thought as good as any 
man's. 

1 The Assembly finally finding the proprietary 
obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies with 
instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges 
of the people, but with the service of the crown, 
resolv'd to petition the king against them, and 

1 The many unanimous resolves of the Assembly — what date ? — 

[ikfarf. note.l 

189 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

appointed me their agent to go over to England, to 
present and support the petition. The House had 
sent up a bill to the governor, granting a sum of 
sixty thousand pounds for the king's use (ten 
thousand pounds of which was subjected to the 
orders of the then general, Lord Loudoun), which 
the governor absolutely refus'd to pass, in compliance 
with his instructions. 

I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the paquet 
at New York, for my passage, and my stores were 
put on board, when Lord Loudoun arriv'd at Phila- 
delphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavor an 
accommodation between the governor and Assembly, 
that his majesty's service might not be obstructed 
by their dissensions. Accordingly, he desir'd the 
governor and myself to meet him, that he might 
hear what was to be said on both sides. We met 
and discuss'd the business. In behalf of the 
Assembly, I urg'd all the various arguments that 
may be found in the public papers of that time, 
which were of my writing, and are printed with the 
minutes of the Assembly ; and the governor pleaded 
his instructions ; the bond he had given to observe 
them, and his ruin if he disobey'd, yet seemed not 
unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudoun would 
advise it. This his lordship did not chuse to do, 
though I once thought I had nearly prevail'd with 
him to do it ; but finally he rather chose to urge the 
compliance of the Assembly ; and he entreated me 
to use my endeavours with them for that purpose, 
declaring that he would spare none of the king's 
troops for the defense of our frontiers, and that, if 
we did not continue to provide for that defense 
ourselves, they must remain expos'd to the enemy. 

I acquainted the House with what had pass'd, 
and, presenting them with a set of resolutions I had 
drawn up, declaring our rights, and that we did 
not relinquish our claim to those rights, but only 

190 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

suspended the exercise of them on this occasion 
thro* force, against which we protested, they at 
length agreed to drop that bill, and frame another 
conformable to the proprietary instructions. This 
of course the governor pass'd, and I was then at 
liberty to proceed on my voyage. But, in the mean- 
time, the paquet had sailed with my sea-stores, 
which was some loss to me, and my only recom- 
pense was his lordship's thanks for my service, all 
the credit of obtaining the accommodation falling to 
his share. 

He set out for New York before me ; and, as the 
time for dispatching the paquet-boats was at his 
disposition, and there were two then remaining 
there, one of which, he said, was to sail very soon, 
I requested to know the precise time, that I might 
not miss her by any delay of mine. His answer 
was, " I have given out that she is to sail on 
Saturday next ; but I may let you know, entre nous, 
that if you are there by Monday morning, you will 
be in time, but do not delay longer." By some 
accidental hinderance at a ferry, it was Monday 
noon before I arrived, and I was much afraid she 
might have sailed, as the wind was fair ; but I was 
soon made easy by the information that she was still 
in the harbor, and would not move till the next 
day. One would imagine that I was now on the 
very point of departing for Europe. I thought so ; 
but I was not then so well acquainted with his lord- 
ship's character, of which indecision was one of the 
strongest features. I shall give some instances. It 
was about the beginning of April that I came to 
New York, and I think it was near the end of June 
before we saii'd. There were then two of the 
paquet-boats, which had been long in port, but were 
detained for the general's letters, which were always 
to be ready to-morrow. Another paquet arriv'd ; 
she too was detain'd ; and, before we sail'd, a fourth 

191 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was expected. Ours was the first to be dispatch'd, 
as having been there longest. Passengers were 
engag'd in all, and some extremely impatient to be 
gone, and the merchants uneasy about their letters, 
and the orders they had given for insurance (it being 
war time) for fall goods ; but their anxiety avail'd 
nothing ; his lordship's letters were not ready ; and 
yet whoever waited on him found him always at 
his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs 
write abundantly. 

Going myself one morning to pay my respects, I 
found in his antechamber one Innis, a messenger of 
Philadelphia, who had come from thence express with 
a paquet from Governor Denny for the General. He 
delivered to me some letters from my friends there, 
which occasion'd my inquiring when he was to re- 
turn, and where he lodg'd, that I might send some 
letters by him. Ke told me he was order'd to call 
to-morrow at nine for the general's answer to the 
governor, and should set off immediately. I put my 
letters into his hands the same day. A fortnight 
after I met him again in the same place. " So, you 
are soon return'd, Innis?" il Return d! no, I am 
not gone yet." "How so?" "I have called here 
by order every morning these two weeks past for his 
lordship's letter, and it is not yet ready." " Is it 
possible, when he is so great a writer ? for I see him 
constantly at his escritoire." " Yes," says Innis, 
"but he is like.St George on the signs, always on 
horseback, and never rides on." This observation 
of the messenger was, it seems, well founded ; for, 
when in England, I understood that Mr Pitt gave 
it as one reason for removing this general, and send- 
ing Generals Amherst and Wolfe, that the minister 
never heard from him, and could not knew ivhat he ivas 
doing. 

This daily expectation of sailing, and all the three 
paquets going down to Sand Hook, to join the 

192 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

fleet there, the passengers thought it best to be on 
board, lest by a sudden order the ships should sail, 
and they be left behind. There, if I remember right, 
we were about six weeks, consuming our sea-stores, 
and oblig'd to procure more. At length the fleet 
sail'd, the General and all his army on board, bound 
to Louisburg, with intent to besiege and take that 
fortress ; all the paquet-boats in company ordered to 
attend the General's ship, ready to receive his dis- 
patches when they should be ready. We were out 
five days before we got a letter with leave to part, 
and then our ship quitted the fleet and steered for 
England. The other two paquets he still detained, 
carried them with him to Halifax, where he stayed 
some time to exercise the men in sham attacks upon 
sham forts, then alter* d his mind as to besieging Lou- 
isburg, and return'd to New York, with all his troops, 
together with the two paquets above mentioned, and 
all their passengers ! During his absence the French 
and savages had taken Fort George, on the frontier 
of that province, and the savages had massacred 
many of the garrison after capitulation. 

I saw afterwards in London Captain Bonnell, who 
commanded one of those paquets. He told me that, 
when he had been detain'd a month, he acquainted 
his lordship that his ship was grown foul, to a de- 
gree that must necessarily hinder her fast sailing, a 
point of consequence for a paquet-boat, and re- 
quested an allowance of time to heave her down and 
clean her bottom. He was asked how long time 
that would require. He answer'd, three days. 
The general replied, " If you can do it in one day, 
I give leave ; otherwise not ; for you must certainly 
sail the day after to-morrow." So he never obtain'd 
leave, though detained afterwards from day to day 
during full three months. 

I saw also in London one of Bonnell's passengers, 
who was so enrag'd against his lordship for deceiv- 
N 193 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ing and detaining him so long at New York, and 
then carrying him to Halifax and back again, that 
he swore he would sue him for damages. Whether 
he did or not, I never heard ; but, as he represented 
the injury to his affairs, it was very considerable. 

On the whole, I wonder'd much how such a 
man came to be intrusted with so important a 
business as the conduct of a great army ; but, 
having since seen more of the great world, and 
the means of obtaining, and motives for giving 
places, my wonder is diminished. General Shirley, 
on whom the command of the army devolved upon 
the death of Braddock, would, in my opinion, if 
continued in place, have made a much better cam- 
paign than that of Loudoun in 1757, which was 
frivolous, expensive, and disgraceful to our nation 
beyond conception; for, tho' Shirley was not a 
bred soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in him- 
self, and attentive to good advice from others, cap- 
able of forming judicious plans, and quick and active 
in carrying them into execution. Loudoun, instead 
of defending the colonies with his great army, left 
them totally expos'd while he paraded idly at Hali- 
fax, by which means Fort George was lost, besides, 
he derang'd all our mercantile operations, and dis- 
tress'd our trade, by a long embargo on the exporta- 
tion of provisions, on pretence of keeping supplies 
from being obtain'd by the enemy, but in reality for 
beating down their price in favor of the contractors, 
in whose profits, it was said, perhaps from suspicion 
only, he had a share. And, when at length the em- 
bargo was taken off, by neglecting to send notice 
of it to Charlestown, the Carolina fleet was detain'd 
near three months longer, whereby their bottoms 
were so much damaged by the worm that a great 
part of them foundered in their passage home. 

Shirley was, I believe, sincerely glad of being 
relieved from so burdensome a charge as the conduct 

194 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of an army must be to a man unacquainted with 
military business. I was at the entertainment given 
by the city of New York to Lord Loudoun, on his 
taking upon him the command. Shirley, tho' 
thereby superseded, was present also. There was 
a great company of officers, citizens, and strangers, 
and, some chairs having been borrowed in the 
neighborhood, there was one among them very low, 
which fell to the lot of Mr Shirley. Perceiving it 
as I sat by him, I said, "They have given you, sir, 
too low a seat." " No matter," says he, " Mr 
Franklin, I find a loiv seat the easiest." 

While I was, as afore mention'd, detain'd at 
New York, I receiv'd all the accounts of the pro- 
visions, etc., that I had furnish'd to Braddock, some 
of which accounts could not sooner be obtain' d from 
the different persons I had employ'd to assist in 
the business. I presented them to Lord Loudoun, 
desiring to be paid the ballance. He caus'd them 
to be regularly examined by the proper officer, who, 
after comparing every article with its voucher, cer- 
tified them to be right ; and the balance due for 
which his lordship promis'd to give me an order on 
the paymaster. This was, however, put off from 
time to time ; and, tho' I call'd often for it by 
appointment, I did not get it. At length, just be- 
fore my departure, he told me he had, on better 
consideration, concluded not to mix his accounts 
with those of his predecessors. " And you," says 
he, " when in England, have only to exhibit your 
accounts at the treasury, and you will be paid 
immediately." 

I mention'd, but without effect, the great and unex- 
pected expense I had been put to by being detain' d 
so long at New York, as a reason for my desiring to 
be presently paid ; and on my observing that it was 
not right I should be put to any further trouble or 
delay in obtaining the money I had advanc'd, as I 

195 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

charged no commission for my service, "O, Sir," 
says he, " you must not think of persuading us that 
you are no gainer ; we understand better those affairs, 
and know that every one concerned in supplying 
the army finds means, in the doing it, to fill his own 
pockets.*' I assur'd him that was not my case, and 
that I had not pocketed a farthing ; but he appear' d 
clearly not to believe me ; and, indeed, I have since 
learnt that immense fortunes are often made in 
such employments. As to my ballance, I am not 
paid it to this day, of which more hereafter. 

Our captain of the paquet had boasted much, be- 
fore we sailed, of the swiftness of his ship ; unfor- 
tunately, when we came to sea, she proved the 
dullest of ninety-six sail, to his no small mortifica- 
tion. After many conjectures respecting the cause, 
when we were near another ship almost as dull as 
ours, which, however, gain'd upon us, the captain 
ordered all hands to come aft, and stand as near the 
ensign staff as possible. We were, passengers in- 
cluded, about forty persons. While we stood there, 
the ship mended her pace, and soon left her neigh- 
bour far behind, which prov'd clearly what our 
captain suspected, that she was loaded too much by 
the head. The casks of water, it seems, had been 
all plac'd forward ; these he therefore order'd to be 
mov'd further aft, on which the ship recover'd her 
character, and proved the sailer in the fleet. 

The captain said she had once gone at the 
rate of thirteen knots, which is accounted thir- 
teen miles per hour. We had on board, as a pas- 
senger, Captain Kennedy, of the Navy, who con- 
tended that it was impossible, and that no ship 
ever sailed so fast, and that there must have been 
some error in the division of the log-line, or some 
mistake in heaving the log. A wager ensu'd be- 
tween the two captains, to be decided when there 
should be sufficient wind. Kennedy thereupon ex- 

196 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

amin'd rigorously the log-line, and, being satisfi'd 
with that, he determin'd to throw the log himself. 
Accordingly some days after, when the wind blew 
very fair and fresh, and the captain of the paquet, 
Lutwidge, said he believ'd she then went at the rate 
of thirteen knots, Kennedy made the experiment, 
and own'd his wager lost. 

The above fact I give for the sake of the follow- 
ing observation. It has been remark'd, as an im- 
perfection in the art of ship-building, that it can 
never be known, till she is tried, whether a new 
ship will or will not be a good sailer ; for that the 
model of a good-sailing ship has been exactly 
follow'd in a new one, which has prov'd, on the 
contrary, remarkably dull. I apprehend that this 
may partly be occasion'd by the different opinions 
of seamen respecting the modes of lading, rigging, 
and sailing of a ship ; each has his system ; and the 
same vessel, laden by the judgment and orders of 
one captain, shall sail better or worse than when by 
the orders of another. Besides, it scarce ever hap- 
pens that a ship is form'd, fitted for the sea, and 
sail'd by the same person. One man builds the 
hull, another rigs her, a third lades and sails her. 
No one of these has the advantage of knowing all 
the ideas and experience of the others, and, there- 
fore, can not draw just conclusions from a combina- 
tion of the whole. 

Even in the simple operation of sailing when at 
sea, I have often observ'd different judgments in the 
officers who commanded the successive watches, the 
wind being the same. One would have the sails 
trimm'd sharper or flatter than another, so that they 
seem'd to have no certain rule to govern by. Yet 
I think a set of experiments might be instituted, 
first, to determine the most proper form of the hull 
for swift sailing ; next, the best dimensions and pro- 
perest place for the masts ; then the form and quan- 

197 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tity of sails, and their position, as the. wind may be; 
and, lastly, the disposition of the lading. This is an 
age of experiments, and I think a set accurately 
made and combin'd would be of great use. I am 
persuaded, therefore, that ere long some ingenious 
philosopher will undertake it, to whom I wish 
success. 

We were several times chas'd in our passage, but 
outsail' d every thing, and in thirty days had sound- 
ings. We had a good observation, and the captain 
judg'd himself so near our port, Falmouth, that, if 
we made a good run in the night, we might be off 
the mouth of that harbor in the morning, and by 
running in the night might escape the notice of the 
enemy's privateers, who often crus'd near the en- 
trance of the channel. Accordingly, all the sail 
was set that we could possibly make, and the wind 
being very fresh and fair, we went right before it, 
and made great way. The captain, after his ob- 
servation, shap'd his course, as he thought, so as to 
pass wide of the Scilly Isles ; but it seems there is 
sometimes a strong indraught setting up St George's 
Channel, which deceives seamen and caused the loss 
of Sir Cloudesley Shovel's squadron. This in- 
draught was probably the cause of what happened 
to us. 

We had a watchman plac'd in the bow, to whom 
they often called, " Look ivell out before there? 
and he as often answered, " Ay, ay " ; but perhaps 
had his eyes shut, and was half asleep at the time, 
they sometimes answering, as is said, mechanically ; 
for he did not see a light just before us, which had 
been hid by the studding-sails from the man at the 
helm, and from the rest of the watch, but by an 
accidental yaw of the ship was discover'd, and 
occasion'd a great alarm, we being very near it, 
the light appearing to me as big as a cart-wheel. 
It was midnight, and our captain fast asleep ; but 

198 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Captain Kennedy, jumping upon deck, and seeing 
the danger, ordered the ship to wear round, all sails 
standing ; an operation dangerous to the masts, but 
it carried us clear, and we escaped shipwreck, for we 
were running right upon the rocks on which the light- 
house was erected. This deliverance impressed me 
strongly with the utility of light-houses, and made 
me resolve to encourage the building more of them 
in America, if I should live to return there. 

In the morning it was found by the soundings, etc., 
that we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the 
land from our sight. About nine o'clock the fog 
began to rise, and seem'd to be lifted up from the 
water like the curtain at a play-house, discovering 
underneath, the town of Falmouth, the vessels in its 
harbor, and the fields that surrounded it. This was 
a most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so 
long without any other prospects than the uniform 
view of a vacant ocean, and it gave us the more 
pleasure as we were now free from the anxieties 
which the state of war occasion'd. 

I set out immediately, with my son, for London, 
and we only stopt a little by the way to view 
Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pem- 
broke's house and gardens, with his very curious 
antiquities at Wilton. We arrived in London the 
27th of July, 1757. 1 

1 Here terminates the Autobiography, as published by Wm. 
Temple Franklin and his successors. What follows was written 
in the last year of Dr Franklin's life, and was first printed (in 
English) in Mr Bigelow's edition of 1868.— En. 



199 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

As soon as I was settled in a lodging Mr Charles 
had provided for me, I went to visit Dr Fothergill, 
to whom I was strongly recommended, and whose 
counsel respecting my proceedings I was advis'd to 
obtain. He was against an immediate complaint to 
government, and thought the proprietaries should 
first be personally appli'd to, who might possibly be 
induc'd by the interposition and persuasion of some 
private friends, to accommodate matters amicably. 
I then waited on my old friend and correspondent, 
Mr Peter Collinson, who told me that John Hanbury, 
the great Virginia merchant, had requested to be 
informed when I should arrive, that he might carry 
me to Lord Granville's, who was then President of 
the Council and wished to see me as soon as possible. 
I agreed to go with him the next morning. Accord- 
ingly Mr Hanbury called for me and took me in his 
carriage to that nobleman's, who receiv'd me with 
great civility ; and after some questions respecting 
the present state of affairs in America and discourse 
thereupon, he said to me: "You Americans have 
wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution ; you 
contend that the king's instructions to his governors 
are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to 
regard or disregard them at your own discretion. 
But those instructions are not like the pocket instruc- 
tions given to a minister going abroad, for regulat- 
ing his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. 
They are first drawn up by judges learned in the 
laws ; they are then considered, debated, and per- 
haps amended in Council, after which they are signed 
by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to 
you, the laiv of the land, for the king is the Legis- 
lator of the Colonies." I told his lordship this 
was new doctrine to me. I had always understood 
from our charters that our laws were to be made by 
our Assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king 
for his royal assent, but that being once given the 

200 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

king could not repeal or alter them. And as the 
Assemblies could not make permanent laws without 
his assent, so neither could he make a law for them 
without theirs. He assur'd me I was totally mis- 
taken. I did not think so, however, and his lord- 
ship's conversation having a little alarm'd me as to 
what might be the sentiments of the court concern- 
ing us, I wrote it down as soon as I return'd to my 
lodgings. I recollected that about 20 years before, 
a clause in a bill brought into Parliament by the 
ministry had propos'd to make the king's instructions 
laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown out 
by the Commons, for which we adored them as our 
friends and friends of liberty, till by their conduct 
towards us in 1 765 it seem'd that they had refus'd 
that point of sovereignty to the king only that they 
might reserve it for themselves. 

After some days, Dr Fothergill having spoken to 
the proprietaries, they agreed to a meeting with me 
at Mr T. Penn's house in Spring Garden. The con- 
versation at first consisted of mutual declarations of 
disposition to reasonable accommodations, but I sup- 
pose each party had its own ideas of what should 
be meant by reasonable. We then went into con- 
sideration o*f our several points of complaint, which 
I enumerated. The proprietaries justify'd their con- 
duct as well as they could, and I the Assembly's. 
We now appeared very wide, and so far from each 
other in our opinions as to discourage all hope of 
agreement. However, it was concluded that I 
should give them the heads of our complaints in 
writing, and they promis'd then to consider them. 
I did so soon after, but they put the paper into the 
hands of their solicitor, Ferdinand John Paris, who 
managed for them all their law business in their 
great suit with the neighbouring proprietary of 
Maryland, Lord Baltimore, which had subsisted 
70 years, and wrote for them all their papers and 

201 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

messages in their dispute with the Assembly. He 
was a proud, angry man, and as I had occasionally in 
the answers of the Assembly treated his papers with 
some severity, they being really weak in point of 
argument and haughty in expression, he had con- 
ceived a mortal enmity to me, which discovering 
itself whenever we met, I declin'd the proprietary's 
proposal that he and I should discuss the heads of 
complaint between our two selves, and refus'd treat- 
ing with any one but them. They then by his advice 
put the paper into the hands of the Attorney and 
Solicitor-General for their opinion and counsel upon 
it, where it lay unanswered a year wanting eight 
days, during which time I made frequent demands 
of an answer from the proprietaries, but without 
obtaining any other than that they had not yet 
received the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor- 
General. What it was when they did receive it I 
never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, 
but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and 
signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of 
its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and 
giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding 
that they should be willing to accommodate matters 
if the Assembly would send out some person of candour 
to treat with them for that purpose, intimating 
thereby that I was not such. 

The want of formality or rudeness was, probably, 
my not having address* d the paper to them with 
their assum'd titles of True and Absolute Proprie- 
taries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I 
omitted as not thinking it necessary in a paper, the 
intention of which was only to reduce to a certainty 
by writing, what in conversation I had delivered 
viva voce. 

But during this delay, the Assembly having pre- 
vailed with Gov'r Denny to pass an act taxing the 
proprietary estate in common with the estates of 

202 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the people, which was the grand point in dispute, 
they omitted answering the message. 

When this act however came over, the proprie- 
taries, counselled by Paris, determined to oppose 
its receiving the royal assent. Accordingly they 
petition'd the king in Council, and a hearing was 
appointed in which two lawyers were employ'd by 
them against the act, and two by me in support of 
it. They alledg'd that the act was intended to load 
the proprietary estate in order to spare those of the 
people, and that if it were suffer'd to continue in 
force, and the proprietaries who were in odium with 
the people, left to their mercy in proportioning the 
taxes, they would inevitably be ruined. We reply'd 
that the act had no such intention, and would have 
no such effect. That the assessors were honest and 
discreet men under an oath to assess fairly and 
equitably, and that any advantage each of them 
might expect in lessening his own tax by augment- 
ing that of the proprietaries was too trifling to induce 
them to perjure themselves. This is the purport of 
what I remember as urged by both sides, except 
that we insisted strongly on the mischievous conse- 
quences that must attend a repeal, for that the 
money, £100,000, being printed and given to the 
king's use, expended in his service, and now spread 
among the people, the repeal would strike it dead 
in their hands to the ruin of many, and the total 
discouragement of future grants, and the selfishness 
of the proprietors in soliciting such a general catas- 
trophe, merely from a groundless fear of their estate 
being taxed too highly, was insisted on in the 
strongest terms. On this, Lord Mansfield, one of 
the counsel rose, and beckoning me took me into 
the clerk's chamber, while the lawyers were plead- 
ing, and asked me if I was really of opinion that no 
injury would be done the proprietary estate in the 
execution of the act. I said certainly. "Then," 

203 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

says he, " you can have little objection to enter into 
an engagement to assure that point." I answer'd, 
" None at all." He then call'd in Paris, and after 
some discourse, his lordship's proposition was ac- 
cepted on both sides ; a paper to the purpose was 
drawn up by the Clerk of the Council, which I 
sign'd with Mr Charles, who was also an Agent of 
the Province for their ordinary affairs, when Lord 
Mansfield returned to the Council Chamber, where 
finally the law was allowed to pass. Some changes 
were however recommended and we also engaged 
they should be made by a subsequent law, but the 
Assembly did not think them necessary ; for one 
year's tax having been levied by the act before the 
order of Council arrived, they appointed a committee 
to examine the proceedings of the assessors, and on 
this committee they put several particular friends of 
the proprietaries. After a full enquiry, they unani- 
mously sign'd a report that they found the tax had 
been assess'd with perfect equity. 

The Assembly looked into my entering into the 
first part of the engagement, as an essential service 
to the Province, since it secured the credit of the 
paper money then spread over all the country. They 
gave me their thanks in form when I return'd. 
But the proprietaries were enraged at Governor 
Denny for having pass'd the act, and turn'd him 
out with threats of suing him for breach of instruc- 
tions which he had given bond to observe. He, 
however, having done it at the instance of the 
General, and for His Majesty's service, and having 
some powerful interest at court, despis'd the threats 
and they were never put in execution. . . . 
[Unfinished]. 



204 



SOME ACCOUNT OF 

FRANKLIN'S LATER LIFE 

PRINCIPALLY IN RELATION TO THE 
HISTORY OF HIS TIME 

BY 

W. MACDONALD 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

There are a multiplicity of standpoints from which 
we must view the many-sided Franklin if we would 
have more than a meagre misconception of that 
rich and varied personality ; but I think his life, 
regarded somewhat objectively, falls readily into 
three periods which have a historical quite as much 
as they have a biographic character. If we look 
upon him, as surely we must look upon him, as the 
greatest type and example of the Citizen which 
modern history knows, and recognise that it was 
evidently Benjamin Franklin's business and affair 
upon this earth to be a citizen, and only his trade 
and livelihood to be a printer, and his casual occu- 
pation and pastime to be, amongst many other 
things, a celebrated man of science — then we shall 
also recognise that his life is divisible into his 
Apprenticeship, his Journeyman - years, and the 
great period of his Mastership in the practical art 
and mystery, which he made so completely his own, 
in all its branches and at all its levels, of being the 
Complete Citizen — of his city, his country, and the 
world. And upon further consideration we shall 
find that the three great stages of his life are 
marked by such a progressive enlargement of the 
scene and the character of his civic activity as these 
three words — city, country, world — may stand for. 

Already in his twenty-second year we have the 
spectacle of a certain ingenious, purposeful young 
man called Franklin, a citizen of Philadelphia, whom, 
young as he is, Philadelphia is peculiarly conscious 
of possessing. He is but a working printer, newly 

207 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

set up in a small way of business with another 
man, has no position worth speaking of, and really 
ought to count for nothing with his neighbours. 
But his practical turn and his genius for thriving on a 
very little, which one must respect, and his searching 
and humorous sort of mind, which is perhaps not 
quite so pleasant to live beside, have made him a 
marked man among them. A stranger coming into 
that part, and taking his ease at his inn, would (we 
feel) be sure to hear him spoken of, not in every case 
with approbation, within the next twenty-four hours. 
Benjamin Franklin is already an asset of the place, 
though nobody there sees that he is on his way to 
become a power in the land. He does not see it 
himself; and if he has already done some things, 
and is daily exercising some faculties, that must tend 
to carry him into a large sphere of activity, he does 
those things and exercises those faculties strictly 
with regard to the day's purposes and to the sphere 
of activity in which he actually finds himself. What- 
ever his defects — for he has been self-educated 
and has lived as a kind of orphan, runaway or 
castaway, in two hemispheres — he is singularly 
lucid, singularly alive : and has drawn a wonderful 
number of moral inferences, considering his years, 
from his own experience and his own thought. But 
perhaps his simple and axiomatic desire to be as little 
as possible either an incompetent, a fool, or a rogue 
in his passage through this world, affords the only, 
as it is a quite sufficient token, that he is an original 
genius and a man in five millions. 

Having begun at the beginning, and having a long 
way to go, he must needs travel at a great rate 
through the earlier stages of the journey ; and by 
his twenty-seventh or his thirtieth year he has 
covered the whole course usually comprised in the 
biographies of successful men and eminently exem- 
plary citizens. At twenty-one he had organised the 

208 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Junto, and was himself, we cannot doubt, equal to 
half the entire intellectual strength of that famous 
body and its branches. At twenty-two he has become 
partner in a business, his intelligence and character 
being reckoned a contribution amply equivalent to 
the other parties' capital. At twenty-three he 
improvises and publishes a pamphlet upon a difficult 
currency question concerning which opinion was 
fiercely agitated, and so does much to determine 
the colonial legislature's decision on that matter. 
This " Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity 
of a Paper Currency " is now looked upon as having 
been an extraordinary production for its place and 
time, anticipating the method and some of the posi- 
tions of Adam Smith — who was then, however, an 
urchin six years old. In this same year our young 
printer takes over the Pennsylvania Gazette, of which 
he is manager, editor, and by far the wisest and 
most humorous contributor to its columns ; and he 
makes of it in a day such a newspaper as America 
had not hitherto known. In his twenty-fourth year 
he has become sole proprietor of the growing 
business by an honourable arrangement with his 
partner, who has decided that town-work is not his 
vocation and wants to get back to husbandry. For 
Franklin, the only difficult point is to choose his 
creditor in making the necessary arrangements, more 
than one friend having spontaneously pressed upon 
him the offer of financial facilities for a venture of 
his own, if he would make it. Next year, at the 
age of twenty-five, he has, " acting with some 
friends" — who would not have acted at all in the 
matter but for his ingenuity in making them believe 
that they cared for these things far more than he 
did — brought into being and started on a pros- 
perous career the Philadelphia Library, the parent 
of the subscription libraries in America, and to-day 
a flourishing institution of which that country is 
o 209 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

justly proud. In his twenty-seventh year he has 
begun to publish the most famous popular annual 
which ever came from the press. Poor Richard's 
Almanack was indeed influential as well as famous, 
and is perhaps the one secular work in the world 
which has educated a people and formed the char- 
acter of a nation. Yet the voice that spoke in it 
was always the voice of Ben Franklin, printer in 
Philadelphia, and expressed his mind even when the 
words were those of other men. We might legiti- 
mately, therefore, look on his apprentice period in 
the art of citizenship as ending at this point, where 
Poor Richard begins, or earlier. But though he 
has already, in this so-called apprentice period, 
done work which would be achievement enough 
for an ordinary excellent citizen's lifetime, yet the 
more historical view justifies us in dating his second 
period from about his thirty-third year. 

What is worth noting in his first period is less 
what he has done, notable as that is, than the way 
in which he has done it, the motives by which he 
has been impelled. His progress towards being a 
philosopher and even a person of some social import- 
ance, is neither the issue of any expansive ideologies 
nor the realisation of any ambitious dreams. It seems 
to come about, naturally and almost unperceived, 
from the everyday applications of common-sense to 
the things immediately in view, the little situations 
of the day and the hour. As he is a Man, he wishes 
to be an intelligent one, and therefore takes the 
trouble of thinking ; and that he may think to better 
purpose, he seeks information wherever he can find 
it. As he is a Printer, he attends to his business ; 
and he differs from the majority in that and all other 
trades in recognising that his business has claims 
upon him, and that those claims include not only 
industry and intelligence but also character. He is 
one of the half-dozen optimists who have firmly 

2IO 



HIS LATER LIFE 

believed that moral worth is worth something even 
in the most desperate circumstances, such as the 
conduct of a thriving business. Finally, as a Phila- 
delphian, he is interested in all the things and the 
people immediately around him ; and he has his own 
thought, and presently his own word to say, on all 
the little politics of the place and the province. His 
pamphlet on paper currency has been spoken of; but 
it is less useful, for an understanding of Franklin, to 
exclaim about its precocity and its argumentative 
value than to recognise its immediately practical 
genesis and aim. It is not a treatise by a young 
thinker, but the printed reasonings of a townsman, 
which he thinks may help. It is, in a word, but an 
instance of that civic handiness, that immediate un- 
professional competence in all the things upon which 
good sense could have a word to say, or character a 
point of view to advocate, which by-and-by carried 
Franklin forward into the ranks of the foremost men 
of his age. Yet he laid down nothing, emerged 
from no limitations, in issuing from the smaller 
sphere ; he took up no new fashion or faculty or 
knowledge in entering into the larger one — but was 
just the same Benjamin Franklin, reasoning and 
reasonable, whether as citizen of Philadelphia taking 
home his purchases of paper in a wheelbarrow, or as 
the representative man of a whole people, placed 
prominently in the eye of all the world. At any 
time in his third period he could have returned to 
the scenes and occupations of his first — to his daily 
work as a colonial printer, and his limited concern- 
ments as a citizen of Philadelphia — without any 
change of that habit of mind and that level of 
intellect and character which won him such esteem 
from the learned men of the French enlightenment 
and such confidence and respect, amounting to a 
moral ascendancy, in the minds of the ministers of 
Louis XVI. And we may say that if Franklin was 

211 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

always the right man in the right place, it was 
because, more than any man who ever moved 
through such a range of activity and experience, he 
was always the same man wherever he found him- 
self. It is this which has made it seem worth while 
to linger thus over what was meant to be but a 
passing reference to the beginning of his career. 
For, not to say that in the beginning all things were, 
we may opine at least that Franklin's life affords an 
extraordinary example of the value of an unpretend- 
ing disposition and an axiomatic mind ; and that all 
his career seems, as we read it in greatest detail, but 
the matter-of-fact consequence of being alive, and 
having a home like one's neighbour, and a business 
to attend to, and a city to care for and serve. That 
is why I have called him the greatest Citizen in 
modern history. 

From what has been said above it follows that the 
difference between his first and his second period is 
expresssed rather by a change in the sphere of his 
activities or of his effective interests than in the 
character of the man or the range of his competence. 
The marked Philadelphian, much commented on by 
his neighbours, and sometimes spoken of even in 
the country places, has imperceptibly, and without 
perceiving it, become transformed into the leading 
Pennsylvanian. His home is in Philadelphia still, 
but the whole province has become his city ; and 
the wider neighbourhood, beyond that province, 
through which his name is becoming quoted and 
familiar, coincides with the area of English settle- 
ment on the Atlantic seaboard. But during the 
first part of this period, though he counts for more 
and more in the life of the community to which he 
belongs, it is still almost entirely as a private 
individual that he exercises a felt influence. He 
is, more than any other, the man from whom people 
receive suggestions, or to whom they come for 

212 



HIS LATER LIFE 

counsel in moments of difficulty or impending failure 
of their own efforts. Even when a very good man 
has laboured hard at a very good scheme — as did 
Dr Bond at his project for a Pennsylvania Hospital — 
the thing cannot make headway with the public 
until the public is assured that their townsman 
Franklin has looked into and approves of it. His 
good sense, his good humour, his more than good 
wits in a case requiring them, his aptness to initiate 
improvements, his admirable moral faculty of never 
claiming the chief credit when they have been 
achieved — in a word, his instinct for well-doing, 
his knowledge of men, and his control over the 
common littlenesses of human nature in himself — 
have made him the most helpful man in Pennsylvania 
for all sorts of occasions. And the occasions on 
which Pennsylvania availed herself of the services 
of this private citizen led to public results of 
enduring consequence, and mark important steps 
in the evolution of the city and the province. The 
paving, cleaning, and lighting of the streets ; the 
introduction of new trees, new cereals, and of 
fertilisers \ the invention of the famed American 
stove ; the formation of a citizens' fire brigade ; the 
founding of that academy which became in no long 
time the University of Pennsylvania ; the organisation 
of the defences both of the city and the province — 
these are some of the favours, and there were many 
more, for which Pennsylvania was indebted to 
Franklin, and, for the most part, not to Franklin 
as a public man, but only as a private man of 
incomparable public spirit. 

All this time, too, we might say that he was 
mainly minding and extending his own private 
business, were it not that, as we have already 
agreed, his business was really to be a citizen, and 
his occupation to make himself useful. Even his 
pastimes subserved that end. If he went out of 

213 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

doors one day, attended only by his son, to fly a 
kite in a thunderstorm and snatch the lightning 
from the clouds, it was less out of an abstract desire 
to verify his theory of the identity of the lightning 
flash and the so-called electric fluid than because 
he felt that the home life of mankind would be 
practically benefited by the conquest of that know- 
ledge. In the four years between 1749 anc * ! 753> 
he suddenly became the most famous scientific 
discoverer of his time. The letters in which he 
had described his surmises and experiments, as 
so much news sent to a friend in England, were 
translated in the course of a few years into the 
principal European languages (including Latin), and 
were universally admired; not only for the " results " 
which they communicated, but for their many 
qualities of matter and form, which ranked them 
as classics of scientific exposition. This philosopher 
of the backwoods was the wonder of the world in 
the middle of that century. And there was that 
about the very subject-matter of his reputation 
which caused him to be regarded by the simpler 
public of many nations as a man of weird know- 
ledge and power, if not exactly as a wizard : in an 
earlier age he would have had his legend, like 
Michael Scot, rather than a scientific recognition, 
like Newton. Nevertheless, all this time the afore- 
said private business — the business of Benjamin 
Franklin, printer and stationer in Philadelphia — 
was prospering and extending, so that the head 
of it was now a man of wealth and substance, 
drawing from this source alone two thousand pounds 
a year. But Franklin valued money only for the 
degree in which it made him master of his own 
time, and so enabled him to prosecute his proper 
occupation of growing wise and being useful. To 
further this end he made, about the time that we speak 
of (in 1748), one of the most generously arranged 

214 



HIS LATER LIFE 

retirements from business on record. That is to 
say, he handed over the whole business with all its 
branches to his foreman David Hall — a former 
fellow-workman whom he had taken into his em- 
ployment a few years previously, having a high 
respect for his qualities of character and intelligence 
— handed over the entire business to Hall on an 
agreement that Hall should pay to him one-half of the 
present profits for a term of eighteen years, and then 
become absolute and sole proprietor, doing with the 
business as he liked. At the same time it was 
arranged that neither Poor Richard? s Almanack nor 
the Pennsylvania Gazette was to be deprived of the 
strength and fascination which the sagacity, the 
knowledge, and the humour of Benjamin Franklin 
could alone impart to their pages. 

The actual consequences of this retirement were 
very different from those looked forward to by the 
magnanimous printer, who, in taking this great step, 
had dreamt of securing "leisure during the rest of 
my life for philosophical studies and amusements." 
Leisure he had indeed secured, ample leisure in 
which to wear himself out in the service of his 
country almost to within an hour of his death forty- 
two years later. And as to his amusements, if any 
man might draw amusement from observing the inner 
springs of great events and studying the behaviour 
of our little human nature at the elevated plane of 
la haute politique, it should be one who to a profound 
acquaintance with the realities of life, as only poor 
and common folk for the most part know them, has 
added the intellect of a philosopher and the discern- 
ment of a humourist. And to Franklin, who was 
practical man and philosopher and humourist in their 
happiest and most intimate combination, these oppor- 
tunities were to be afforded, or forced upon him, in 
consequence of this said retirement from business 
and of some other happenings which were less 

215 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

within his control. To refer to this, however, is to 
anticipate. The point to be noted here is that 
Franklin's retirement from business meant his entry 
into the sphere of what, at the risk of appearing 
paradoxical, I shall call official usefulness. Of 
course it is the aim and reason-for-being of officials, 
as such, to prevent anything useful from being done 
by anybody, and to do as little harm themselves as 
they can with the remainder of their time. At any 
rate, in Franklin's own words : — 

" The publick now considering me as a man of leisure, 
laid hold of me for their purposes, every part of our civil 
government, and almost at the same time, imposing some 
duty upon me. The governor put me into the commission 
of the peace ; the corporation of the city chose me of the 
common council, and soon after an alderman ; and the 
citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in 
Assembly." 

Thus the leading Pennsylvanian was a leading Penn- 
sylvanian still, only more full of works than ever. But 
he is now rendering services to the province upon a 
scale and of a kind that would not have been possible 
to a private member of the community, however dis- 
tinguished, influential, and honoured. Of these 
occupations — such as his improvement of the postal 
system of the entire colonies ; his Plan of Union, 
submitted to the Congress at Albany in 1 7545 his 
co-operation with General Braddock (by which he 
averted an impending risk of Pennsylvania being 
dragooned if not devastated by that iracund defender 
of colonial safeties); his brief but creditable career 
as a military commander and builder of wooden 
frontier fortresses — of these he has given in the 
latter part of the Autobiography a summary which 
is sufficient in regard to the historical events, but 
which makes too little of his own part and merit in 
the things that took place. But it was as leader of 

216 



HIS LATER LIFE 

the popular party in the constitutional conflict with 
the Penns, proprietaries of Pennsylvania, that hi? 
powers were now (from about 1 750 onwards) 
most signally developed and used to most far- 
reaching effect. It is, finally, in the course of this 
provincial conflict that he arrives at the further 
limit of what I have called his second stage : when, 
at the crossing of an invisible line, the leading Penn- 
sylvanian becomes the Representative American — 
because the most absolutely and comprehensively 
American man on that continent — and as such is 
planted forward, outside his own country, and upon 
the universal platform of the world, to be the intel- 
lectual and moral protagonist of a new nation, and 
the advocate of his distressed people to the hearts of 
the peoples of Europe. 

Now regarding the first of these periods, the 
Philadelphian period, the Autobiography gives a 
sufficient and a famous account. Regarding the 
second, the Pennsylvanian period, it speaks with 
less fulness, and the record is abruptly broken off. 
Regarding the third — the American or Continental 
period, when he became so conspicuously a citizen 
of the world, just because he loved his native 
country best — the Autobiography tells us nothing 
at all, ceasing as it does at a point some twenty 
years earlier. That is a loss which can never be 
made good, even by the longest and best biography, 
and the biographies of Franklin are. amongst the 
longest and best in the English language. Within 
the limits of this appendix all that can be 
attempted is a brief summary, indicating the part 
played by Franklin in the history of the Revolu- 
tionary era. But even this may be serviceable to 
some readers of the present reprint, to whom, as 
few of them can have had the advantage of being 
born American citizens, knowledge of these things 
may not have come by nature. First, however, 

217 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

something must be said in order to make more intel- 
ligible to English readers that struggle against the 
proprietors which engaged Franklin's energies dur- 
ing the latter part of his Pennsylvanian period. 



The Province was named after Admiral William 
Penn, to whose son — a more famous William — 
Charles II. conveyed it in 1 68 1, in lieu of a 
monetary settlement of the large claim against the 
Crown which the said son had inherited from the 
Admiral. Under the title of Proprietor (or Pro- 
prietary) of Pennsylvania, William Penn was invested 
with the functions of a captain-general over this vast 
region, with power to make treaties with the Indians 
and to purchase lands from them; and while retain- 
ing the status of an English gentleman at home, was 
virtually created a prince beyond the seas. 

" He was to appoint judges and magistrates ; could 
pardon all crimes, except murder and treason ; and what- 
ever things he could lawfully do himself he could appoint 
a deputy to do, he and his heirs for ever. But he could 
lay no impost, no customs, no tax, nor enact a law, without 
the consent of the freemen of the province in Assembly 
represented. Of the land he was absolute proprietor ; nor 
would he dispose of any of it absolutely. He sold great 
tracts at forty shillings per hundred acres, all subject to 
an annual quit-rent of one shilling per hundred acres. He 
also reserved manors, city lots, and various portions of 
territory, either holding them against a rise in value or 
letting them to tenants.' 



>> 



The history of the province is not our proper 
topic, so it will be sufficient if the reader takes 
note of two things that had happened in the 
interval between, say, 1681 and 1753. * n t ^ ie ^ rst 
place the province of Pennsylvania had grown 
wonderfully in all senses, by the addition of lands 

218 



HIS LATER LIFE 

purchased from the Indians, and by the rapid incom- 
ing and thriving of settlers. Thus Philadelphia, a 
garden city with over fourteen thousand inhabitants, 
was also a great place of trade and shipping, and 
the business and marketing centre for a provincial 
population of nearly two hundred thousand. In 
the second place, the proprietorship had passed to 
Thomas and Richard Penn, the surviving sons of 
the founder. Thomas Penn possessed three-fourths 
of the entire estate ; and was in all respects so much 
the leading personality in this brotherhood that 
Franklin frequently speaks of " the proprietary," 
as if there were only one to be reckoned with. 
The proprietaries were not, in an absolute sense, 
legislators of Pennsylvania. But through their right 
of appointment they had a predominant influence, 
and by their power of veto on all acts of Assembly 
they were in a position to hinder the conduct of 
public business to any extent they pleased. They 
were pleased to do so on all occasions when their 
prerogatives or their private interest seemed to be 
either immediately or remotely impinged upon or 
imperilled. The resident governor of the province 
was but the nominee and political man-of-business 
of the Penns, the factor and watch-dog of what 
was to them merely an enormous private estate. 
The more that estate became developed by the 
intelligence and industry, the character and courage 
of other men — religious men from all the world who 
had made their homes there, on the confines of the 
wilderness and with the savage for their neighbour 
— the more did the Penn interests seem worth foster- 
ing and looking after with the closest vigilance and 
the most jealous foresight. Governor after governor 
was sent out, each with his secret instructions to this 
end; and the effect of these instructions was that 
the history of each governorship is a story of pro- 
tracted wrangles between the representatives of the 

219 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

people and the deputy of the proprietors. The 
governor could refuse to sign the bills of the 
Assembly if the Assembly showed a disposition to 
encroach or no disposition to comply ; and some- 
times a whole table-load of these inhibited acts of 
parliament awaited his pleasure to become law. 
The Assembly could retaliate by refusing or defer- 
ring to " consider the question of the governor's 
support" — in plain English to pay him his salary, 
which was optional and honorary and of unfixed 
amount. Meanwhile the man must live, and bills 
of another kind than those forwarded by the As- 
sembly were apt to accumulate upon his table. 
Thus the situation tended to resolve itself into a 
question of who could hold out longest : the Assembly 
under the inconveniences of an arrest of public busi- 
ness, or the governor under the discomforts and the 
privations due to a stoppage of supplies. On one 
occasion at least the comedy was played out to the 
point at which the curtain came down upon the 
historic tableau of a governor receiving his salary 
with the one hand while with the other he appended 
his signature to the Assembly's bills. Latterly, how- 
ever, the proprietors had bethought them to safeguard 
their interests against the risks of such a surrender 
by taking a bond of the new governor before sending 
him out ; so that for him to give way upon any point 
contrary to the spirit or letter of his instructions, 
would now mean not only ignominious recall, but 
more or less financial damage for himself or his 
guarantors. 

The antagonism between Proprietors and People 
that was inherent in the system of government led 
to a succession of minor disputes, having a merely 
local interest. But about the time when Franklin 
entered public life the questions at issue began to 
take a broader character, entitling them to be con- 
sidered constitutional rather than local ones. This 

220 



HIS LATER LIFE 

new phase began with a dispute in regard to the 
expences of what were called Indian Affairs \ by 
which was meant the expence of keeping up 
friendly relations with the Indians, and especially 
of making the considerable presents that were 
always incidental to negotiations for the purchasing 
of land from the tribes. The Assembly, as the 
other charges of administration grew, now sub- 
mitted tfaat the Proprietors ought to bear a share 
of this particular burden. How reasonable the 
request was, will be understood when it is ex- 
plained that the people had at an earlier time 
conceded to the Proprietors an exclusive right — 
which does not seem to have belonged to them 
originally — of purchasing lands from the Indians. 
How valuable, also, that right was, will be under- 
stood when it is added that, on one occasion alone, 
the Penns bought for ^700 a stretch of lands 
which they valued at £3,000,000 in their own 
land-selling negotiations with the colonists. Never- 
theless, they stoutly and angrily resisted the demand 
that they should help to pay the expences incurred 
in securing for them such vast advantages. If there 
were such expences, the people, and not they, must 
be taxed to pay them. This chapter of the dispute 
was still unclosed when the second and greater one 
opened. By this second one, Pennsylvania is brought 
into connection with the great currents of history 
and the rivalries of mighty nations. England and 
France were technically at peace with one another 
from 1748 to 1756; hut in North America a war, 
in which much was achieved and more was suffered, 
was in active progress from about I75 2 - Such a 
war not only threatened England with the loss of 
her colonies, but threatened the colonists with more 
than the loss of their homes. For war in that part 
of the world, in those days, brought the Indian, and 
all the horrors that Indian warfare meant. No colony 

221 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was more exposed to the visitations of this unchristian 
foe than the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. There- 
fore the inhabitants hardly needed the commands of 
the Home Government, which were emphatic and 
urgent enough, that they (and all other loyal subjects 
in America) should put themselves in a state of 
defence. But the Proprietors regarded such con- 
ditions of public peril as but favourable opportunities 
for getting the Assembly to abandon some claim of 
its own, or to ratify some claim of theirs, which 
might at the moment be in dispute ; and the method 
was, to permit nothing to be done until they had their 
way. So bill after bill, appropriating money for war 
purposes — or, as it was called, " for the King's use " 
— was now vetoed by the Governor, because the 
estates of the Penns had not been exempted from the 
taxation imposed for the defence of their property 
and everyone else's. The story cannot be followed 
out in these pages. Suffice it, that the Assembly 
conducted its disputation with these arrogant and 
foolish Proprietors in a way that would have been 
creditable to a greater Parliament, in not its meanest 
ages ; and knew how to be forcible and trenchant 
without loss of moderation, and constitutionally re- 
spectful without abating a tittle of the respect which 
it very properly had for itself. This strong quality 
was introduced into the deliberations and the docu- 
ments of Assembly by Benjamin Franklin ; who, as 
leader of the popular party, and the most gifted 
writing-man in America, was virtually Secretary for 
the People during ten years of ever-renewed con- 
troversy. In his Autobiography he understates, as 
usual, the extent to which his personality was a 
prevailing power, an inspiration and a defence, to 
the province in those days. Even the Proprietors at 
last recognised that he was of some importance ; and 
if this knowledge only prompted them to approach 
him with a bribe, the blunder was quite in character 

222 



HIS LATER LIFE 

and did him no damage. The colonists expressed 
their recognition of his value in a more worthy way. 
For when a point had been reached at which the 
alternatives presented to them were, either, to accept 
finally a position of legal vassalage to the Penns, or 
else allow the defenceless province to go under alto- 
gether—then they decided that Benjamin Franklin, 
their wisest and strongest, was the man to take their 
cause across the seas for settlement, and submit it to 
the judgment of greater powers in the English world 
than even Thomas and Richard Penn. 

The last pages of the Autobiography tell of his 
arrival in England, and indicate rather than explain 
what he effected. To explain fully would require 
more space than is available here, but his account 
may be supplemented a little. In the first place he 
had come upon a more unwelcome errand than he 
was aware of when he set out. Colonial affairs had 
lately begun to receive a good deal of attention from 
the Home Government, but the tendency of that 
attention was by no means favourable to colonial 
ideas. Ministers and officials had discovered that 
matters were rather confused in that part of the 
world, and had decided very wisely that they must be 
put in better order. Unfortunately, the putting in 
order was to consist in the colonies being taken in 
hand and " put in their places ; " which they were 
supposed to have wandered away from in dreams of 
unqualified self-government and such like delusions. 
In a word, governmental and bureaucratic ideas were 
having their turn just then in what we may call, by 
courtesy, official thought. It was likely to be an ill 
turn for Pennsylvania in particular, since that colony 
was not a favourite with official thinkers. In the 
second place, special steps were presently taken by 
the Proprietors to secure a pronouncement in favour 
of their own claims as against the Assembly ; which 
were just the kind of claims the Home Government 

223 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was itself inclined to set up against Assemblies one 
and all. The occasion was this. Governor Denny, 
not being at a safe distance in England while the 
French were marching and the Indians prowling 
about the frontier of every colony, was in a position 
to realise what the course which he was commanded 
to take was likely to lead to. He had, therefore, as 
became a soldier and a man of sense, broken his 
instructions and given his assent to bills involving 
taxation of the Proprietary estates. When this was 
known in England, a new Governor was at once 
despatched to take his place. But alas ! Governor 
Hamilton did what Governor Denny had done ; so 
the only remedy remaining was for the poor Penns 
to invoke the King of England to protect their 
pockets against the tax-gatherer. The custom of 
the constitution required that all colonial Acts of 
Assembly, after being duly passed, should be for- 
warded to England for the King's assent. The 
Penns now made a test case of one of those above 
referred to, and appealed to the King in Council to 
disallow it. In June 1 760 the committee to which 
the matter was referred rendered a report such as 
the brothers Penn might themselves have written ; 
so emphatic it was in its vindication of their claims 
and its denunciation of the Assembly. And not of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly alone. For, going out 
into general reflections that were intended as a 
reprimand and a warning to all other Assemblies in 
America, it contained much about " attempts to set 
up a democracy in place of His Majesty's Govern- 
ment " ; about the constitution being " brought back 
to its proper principles " ; about " restoring to the 
Crown, in the person of the Proprietaries, its just 
prerogatives" — in a word, the note of the time 
resounded menacingly throughout the dread and 
decisive document. Franklin was in the act of set- 
ting out for a holiday when a copy of this report, or 

224 



HIS LATER LIFE 

precise information as to its character, reached him. 
He at once turned back and addressed himself to the 
task of getting the thing set aside before its stupid 
thunders had raised, as they would have raised, a 
real storm. By what means he wrought during the 
next three months we do not know ; but by the time 
when the King in Council sat to dispose of this 
matter on September 2, 1 7 60, wisdom and Franklin 
had prevailed to such effect that the points at issue 
between Assembly and Proprietors were decided 
almost without qualification in the Assembly's 
favour. As for the interview with Lord Mansfield 
in a back room (referred to in the last lines of the 
Autobiography), it seems to have been a little theat- 
rical manoeuvre by which the Council " saved its 
face," as the modern diplomatic slang expresses it. 
The Council also saved in this way the feelings of 
its over-hasty committee, by affecting to believe that 
in securing such guarantees as Franklin was now 
giving it was securing something quite new and 
important, something that entirely changed the aspect 
of the dispute ! 

Thus after three years of waiting, he was able to 
bring to a prosperous conclusion the main business 
on which he had come. He was detained in England 
two years longer by other colonial business ; but 
this five years' absence from home was a time 
pleasantly and usefully spent. Usefully, even from 
the point of view of imperial affairs ; for it would 
seem that to Franklin, in a degree, we are indebted 
for the addition of Canada to the British Empire. 
He shared keenly in the public interests of that time, 
and was very emphatically what would be called 
nowadays an Imperialist. Being struck by the 
futility of England carrying on her war against 
France in the heart of Germany — where nothing 
could be gained by her in the end, and not much 
lost by France, save the winning and losing of 
p 225 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

battles — he pointed to Canada as a more eligible 
field of operations : since it was a field which 
England, should she be victorious, would be able to 
add permanently to her own estate when the fight- 
ing was done. His views and arguments on the 
subject were laid before Pitt by confidential inter- 
mediaries ; and whether prompted by Franklin's 
intelligence or his own, the great War-Minister put 
this plan in execution, with memorable consequences. 
But as the end of the war drew near, and when 
journalists and pamphleteers began to occupy them- 
selves in forecasting the probable terms of peace, 
Canada became a leading topic. The question was 
agitated whether England, since she could hardly 
expect to retain all the spoils that had fallen to her 
in the course of the struggle, should elect to restore 
to France the valuable sugar-islands of Guadaloupe, 
or the dearly-won province of Canada. On such a 
question Franklin could not be indifferent. He who 
had been the first to recommend that conquest was 
naturally the last man to like the idea of its being 
nullified. And he had better reasons, based upon 
longer views. " I have long been of opinion," he 
wrote to Lord Kames, " that the foundations of the 
future grandeur and stability of the British Empire lie 
in America ; and though, like other foundations, they 
are low and little now, they are, nevertheless, broad 
and strong enough to support the greatest political 
structure that human wisdom ever yet erected." 
With Canada added, they would be broader and 
stronger still ; and he was led to forecast the expan- 
sion of the British race in that part of the world, 
and thereby the increase of English power in the 
world at large, in a very optimistic sense. To influ- 
ence public opinion and the councils of state in 
favour of his views, he published a voluminous 
pamphlet setting forth the advantages likely to 
accrue to England from her new possession in 

226 



HIS LATER LIFE 

America. And doubtless the pamphlet had its 
influence, for he had a good case, and, at all times, 
a knack of convincing writing. At any rate, by the 
Treaty of Paris (1763) Guadaloupe was restored to 
France, and Canada remained, and remains to this 
day, with England. 

Turning from these public concerns to the more 
personal life of Franklin in England, we may say that 
if he had not much work to do, every day of the 
time was well filled. His electrical studies were 
not neglected. He had experimental apparatus, 
mostly of his own invention and his own building, 
set up in his London rooms ; and of the many 
visitors who travelled thither most came to see the 
man, but not a few came to see the Wonder-worker. 
A great many of the best papers contained in his 
Collected Works were written for the amusement or 
the instruction of the daughter of Mrs Stevenson, 
the lady whose house at 7 Craven Street, Strand, 
was his home and headquarters in England now and 
later. He was accompanied on this visit by his son 
William, a young man in all senses well formed to 
make his way in the social and official world 5 and 
father and son made many little journeys into 
different parts of England, and even as far as to 
Scotland. In the latter country, it is pleasing to 
know, Franklin found the welcome which he looked 
back to with the greatest pleasure of all, and avowed 
that if he were to choose his life-abode anew, it was 
there he would choose to be and to abide. They 
also explored the Northamptonshire countryside 
whence his own and his wife's forbears had come; 
and he found some new relations who, albeit in a 
humble station of life, were worthily maintaining the 
Franklin tradition of health, intelligence, and char- 
acter. He also sought the printing-house in which 
he had worked as a lad, and, standing by the old 
case, which he himself had used, chatted long and 

227 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

curiously with the compositors about how things 
were in his day. On this occasion he derogated so 
far alas ! from the virtues of the Water-American as 
to send out for a plentiful supply of beer, that he 
and his fellow-craftsmen might celebrate this re- 
union in the spirit of true British happiness. On a 
visit to Cambridge he was received with a great 
deal of distinction by the learned men of that place, 
as he was by all learned and thoughtful men wher- 
ever he went. Franklin's visit to England was 
indeed a sort of five-years'-long event, and broken 
records of the profound impression which his per- 
sonality made upon all who met him are scattered 
throughout the social, political, and literary memoirs 
of that time. He was the subject of a wide curi- 
osity. Great expectations, which it was hard for 
any man to live up to, everywhere preceded him. 
Yet none who met him were disappointed, and 
many were surprised ; so wise he was, and so various, 
so much a perfect man at every point. More 
notable, perhaps, than the admiration everywhere 
accorded him was the warm feeling of friendship 
which he inspired in so many of his contemporaries. 
And those friendships stood the test of time as few 
friendships do ; not only of time, but of historical 
circumstances that seldom fail to compel estrange- 
ment even between brother and brother, or father 
and son. To refer to this, however, is to anticipate. 
What has to be said here is that the enthusiasm of 
some of his friends would be content with nothing 
less than his settling in England for good. And 
had it lain only with him to decide, he was more 
than half willing. But he well knew that no power 
on earth could ever induce his good wife to face the 
horrors of a sea- voyage ; so he made his prepara- 
tions for getting home. The feelings with which 
he left these shores are happily expressed in a letter 
to Lord Kames, written from Portsmouth in August 

228 



HIS LATER LIFE 

1762. "I am now waiting here only for a wind to 
waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy 
island and my friends in it without extreme regret, 
though I am going to a country and a people that I 
love. I am going from the Old world to the New ; 
and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this 
world for the next : grief at the parting ; fear of 
the passage ; hope of the future." 



On arriving at Philadelphia, at the beginning of 
November, he was enthusiastically welcomed by his 
fellow-citizens. He was, indeed, so much called 
upon by congratulating friends, and so greatly in 
request for public business, that he said, in a letter 
to Miss Stevenson, he would have to come back to 
England for a little repose. Little as he guessed it, 
he was to be back in England very soon \ and there 
was not much repose for him in the interval. Al- 
most the whole of the year 1 763 was given to a 
laborious post-office pilgrimage through the colonies, 
and on his return to Philadelphia he found plenty to 
do. The whole province was in a state of com- 
motion and dread, the condition of things being be- 
tween anarchy and civil war. It arose in this way. 
At the conclusion of the war between France and 
England, the Indians had not been sufficiently taken 
into account. Besides being demoralised by their 
late participation in the white man's doings, they 
were in a bad temper at the loss of what had been 
for some years a sort of livelihood. So they con- 
tinued the war on their own account and in their 
own way ; to such effect that all along the western 
frontier, " men loathed the very name of Indian n 
in the year 1763. Among the wild, if godly, 
Scoto-Irish Calvinists of Paxton, a western county 
of Pennsylvania, this feeling of morbid repugnance 

229 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was reinforced by religious fanaticism. In the eyes 
of these, Indians were " Canaanites," and as such 
ought righteously to be put to the sword wher- 
ever found. Going to find them, they began con- 
veniently by massacring a small group of harmless 
(apparently Christianised) Indians, who for about 
two generations had lived in close neighbourhood 
and in daily intercourse with the white settlers. 
Them the " Paxton Boys " killed and scalped on one 
December dawn, and burned their village to the 
ground. Those who escaped on this occasion fell 
victims a few days later, when the same band broke 
into the building at Lancaster in which the poor fugi- 
tives had been placed by the local magistrate for safety. 
Young and old, women and children, all were put 
to the hatchet. These outrages created a profound 
horror throughout the province ; yet the ruffians 
were not without their discreet sympathisers and 
their smug priestly apologists. Franklin, who had 
just returned from his tour, virtually took the pro- 
vince into his private charge at this juncture, 
and carried it, as nobody else could have done, 
through a most ominous passage of its history. He 
first used his pen and press to admirable purpose in 
rallying to the cause of humanity the ineffective 
virtues of the quieter people, and in putting the 
respectable sympathisers and apologists of massacre 
out of countenance. He next, as the need arose, 
improvised a civil guard of a thousand men, for the 
defence of a terrified congregation of Christian 
Indians who had come, led by their Moravian pastor, 
to seek protection in Philadelphia. By and by the 
Paxton people advanced, heavily armed and in 
hunting gear, breathing wrath and tags of Scripture, 
to take these refugees in the heart of the city and 
scalp them where they stood. Franklin and his 
men were prepared to fight to the death if need be ; 
yet he was loath to shed the blood even of a 

230 



HIS LATER LIFE 

" Paxton Boy " if he could help it. So when the 
rabble of terrorists was within a mile or two of the 
city, he went out, accompanied only by a couple of 
citizens, to meet and confer with them. The effect 
of that conference, in which he took a very high 
and severe tone, such as these wild but vigorous- 
minded men would respect, was that they recognised 
the odds as well as the argument against them, and 
went home. So there was an end of that trouble, 
thanks to the courage and character of a single man. 
Troubles of a more familiar sort speedily ensued. 
In October 1 763, anew governor had arrived in the 
person of a nephew of the Proprietors. A nephew of 
the Proprietors meant a grandson of the revered 
Founder, so no appointment could have been more 
pleasing to Pennsylvanian feelings. The sending of 
a member of the family to reside among them was 
taken to be an augury that the days of conflict were 
at an end ; that an era of conciliation, good under- 
standing, and co-operation between Proprietors and 
people, was about to begin. Governor Penn was 
received in Pennsylvania as an English royal prince 
would be received in any English colony to-day ; 
and in this instance, at least, the gratified Assembly 
made all haste to "consider the question of the 
Governor's support." Unfortunately this enthusiasm 
was misplaced, and these hopes were illusory. 
During the Paxton affair, the new Governor played 
a very weak part, and was fain to take up his abode 
in Franklin's house till the trouble was over. When 
business was resumed, it began to appear that he 
had his " instructions," like any other. The result was 
such a series of vetoes and interferences that by the 
middle of March 1 764 the Assembly was brought 
into a state of sheer paralysis or arrest of its functions 
as a legislative body. After this disappointment of 
such generous hopes, a sort of desperation prevailed. 
It seemed that nothing could be done at all with 

231 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

that family. The obvious alternative, then, was to 
do without it ; if only it could be got rid of. So 
the Assembly adjourned until May 14th. The 
recess was devoted to a political campaign concerned 
with only one point : namely " Whether an humble 
address should be drawn up and transmitted to his 
Majesty ; praying that his Majesty would be 
graciously pleased to take the people of this pro- 
vince under his immediate protection and govern- 
ment." It was found that an overwhelming 
majority of the freeholders was in favour of the 
change of constitution which this pointed to. It had 
been powerfully advocated by Franklin in a timely 
pamphlet which was widely read throughout Penn- 
sylvania during the recess. In this he had reviewed, 
not for the first or last time, the history of their 
constitutional conflict, and argued cogently that 
there was something wrong in the system which 
led to such results. 

" For though it is not unlikely that in these as well as 
other disputes there are faults on both sides, every glowing 
coal being apt to inflame its opposite ; yet I see no reason 
to suppose that all proprietary rulers are worse men than 
other rulers, nor that all people in proprietary governments 
are worse people than those in other governments. 1 
suspect, therefore, that the cause is radical, interwoven in 
the constitution, and so become the very nature, of pro- 
prietary governments ; and will therefore produce its effects 
so long as such government continue." 

That was a very exciting year in the political 
history of Pennsylvania, and Franklin's pen was very 
busy, to good literary as well as controversial pur- 
pose. Suffice it, however, to say here that when a 
new Assembly met in October the business of 
appointing an agent to carry the petition to the King 
was at once taken up. For this duty Franklin was 
chosen, in spite of an impassioned endeavour of the 

232 



HIS LATER LIFE 

small but influential proprietary party in the House 
to have someone "less dangerous" — that is, less 
likely to succeed — employed in the hateful and fate- 
ful business. November J found Franklin setting 
out for Chester, on the Delaware, where he was to 
embark for England. A cavalcade of five hundred 
citizens brought him on the way, who was crossing 
the seas to serve them all. With good weather to 
help, the ship made a quick voyage, and on December 
9 he was delivered (delivered, indeed ! for a sea 
voyage in those days was a hard imprisonment, from 
which he was especially apt to suffer) on to kindly 
English ground. Posting from Portsmouth to 
London he was soon established at his old quarters 
in Craven Street, receiving his delighted, astonished, 
thrice-welcoming friends once more. 

From this point the Pennsylvanian question ceases 
to have actuality, even for the biographer of 
Franklin. It has henceforth only a retrospective 
interest, as it is seen to have supplied a kind of 
rehearsal in little of that larger constitutional con- 
flict with which the Great Pennsylvanian was to be 
so memorably associated. In this new conflict, the 
place of Pennsylvania is taken by the whole of the 
American colonies ; and the place of the Proprietors, 
infatuated in their assertion of unjust and impossible 
prerogatives, is taken by our good King George the 
Third. The historic course of events which solved 
the greater question disposed of the lesser one by a 
sort of immediate inference, since the privileges of 
the vassal-despot in a distant dependency could not 
well survive the deposition of his sovereign. It 
needs only to be said here that Franklin, once 
arrived in England, was soon advised how unfavour- 
able the moment was for pressing the business on 
which he had come. And although the petition of 
the Assembly was duly presented, and references to 
the probability or improbability of some impending 

233 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

result thereof appear from time to time in Franklin's 
correspondence, we may practically consider the 
question as having been in abeyance from now until 
the Fourth of July 1776: when an end was made of 
that old song, and of an older and better one. 

The new and greater question referred to above, 
was, of course, that of England's right to tax the 
colonies by Act of Parliament. The idea had been 
mooted more than once during the first part of the 
century, but no responsible politician had ever 
deigned to take it seriously. In recent years, how- 
ever, several circumstances had co-operated in 
disposing statesmen to accord more respectful 
consideration to what had been hitherto a scouted 
project. There was, in the first place, that 
general strengthening of the ideals of what one 
may call governmentalism, already alluded to, 
which began to be effective on the accession of 
George the Third. About that time there also 
began to be felt a great need for new sources of 
revenue ; partly owing to the cost of the war, and 
partly because the territorial expansion which that 
war led to, carried with it a heavy increase in the 
charges of Empire. Finally, the war itself had 
shown the resources of the colonists, even their 
resources in ready money, to be far greater than 
had hitherto been supposed. When, therefore, Mr 
Charles Townshend prepared in 1 763 his extensive 
plan for organising and governing the colonies : and 
when it was known that the said plan would have 
for its immediate result and visible token the raising 
of a revenue there by taxation imposed from Eng- 
land, and the planting of a standing army in the heart 
of the country, to keep everything and everybody in 
good order — of course he had with him at once the 
implicit approbation of every man in England who 
was by way of being in the current of prevailing 
ideas : that is to say, who was well-informed without 

234 



mS LATER LIFE 

knowledge, and intelligent without thought. As it 
happened, Mr Townshend and his particular set 
were somewhat abruptly unseated from the place of 
authority ; but the spirit of the time being what I 
have said, this displacement made little difference in 
the plans of government. His successors promptly 
took up his unfinished work. Some months before 
Franklin sailed for England, news reached the 
colonies that Mr George Grenville had intimated his 
intention of introducing a bill into Parliament at an 
early date, to provide for the raising of a revenue in 
America by means of a stamp duty. Colonists were 
almost as much astonished as alarmed at this talk of 
the English Parliament imposing taxation upon them ; 
who conceived themselves to be within the British 
Empire, indeed, but outside that particular realm 
which Parliament represented and made laws for. 
They were not represented there : therefore they 
could not be taxed there. The Assemblies, that of 
Pennsylvania among the rest, took steps to formulate 
the colonial view, and appealed to the Common Law 
of England, the provisions of their charters, and the 
custom of the constitution, in support of it. These 
views were embodied in loyal and dutiful Resolu- 
tions, to be transmitted to England, deprecating an 
innovation which was felt to be fraught with the 
most evil consequences. Franklin brought over the 
Resolution of his Assembly, and was further instructed 
to co-operate with the other colonial agents in trying 
to get the Ministry to abandon its ill-considered 
scheme. And try they did ; but, for all the effect 
they could produce, they might as well have been 
at home. An interview with Grenville on February 
2, 1765, only showed how little common ground, 
whether of opinion or feeling, there was to the two 
sides, and how little the best of arguments were likely 
to influence the action of Government. Eleven days 
later the bill was read a first time in the House of 

2 35 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Commons ; and, despite the brave resistance of a very 
small band who stood for sense and liberty, its passage 
through both Houses was so easy and rapid that by 
the 22nd of March it had received the royal assent 
and become law. So that matter was settled, it 
seemed. The principle of taxation by Act of 
Parliament had been asserted beyond recall. The 
only question now open, in the minds of English 
politicians and people, was, " How shall we next 
apply that principle — what new taxes shall we 
impose ? " It was a question that all were asking, 
and very many were hastening to answer. 

One answer as good as all came from America, 
like the muttering of far-off thunder, about six 
months later. News of the passing of the Stamp 
Act had arrived there at the beginning of July : the 
returning packets which reached England at the 
beginning of November reported the result. The 
whole country was swayed by one universal indig- 
nation. The separate colonies were drawn together 
as they had never been before. Resolutions de- 
nouncing the new law as tyrannical and unconstitu- 
tional had been passed by the leading Assemblies. 
The people had made a bond with each other to 
use no articles of English manufacture, or articles 
imported from England, until the injustice wasundone. 
If they had not the cloth with which to make their 
own clothes, they would wear their old ones until 
the new were ready. And in the meantime no 
lamb was to be killed for food, but all reared for 
their wool, until the country should be supplied 
with the material of the textile and clothing 
industries. This, and much else like this, was 
strange news to English ears. Even Franklin seems 
to have been surprised at the vigour and unanimity 
of protest. Without waiting for this encourage- 
ment, however, he had been hard at work since 
July trying whether the disastrous measure of the 

236 



HIS LATER LIFE 

late government (for Grenville and his colleagues, 
they also in turn, had been thrown out of office by 
the caprice of their sovereign) could not be cancelled, 
even yet. While he was thus employed in England 
his fellow-countrymen in America were denouncing 
him as the worst of traitors, and rioters were sur- 
rounding his house in Pennsylvania, where his good 
wife was for a while in a state of siege. The 
explanation of this curious phenomenon is simple 
enough. When the Stamp Act was passed Gren- 
ville had sent for the colonial agents and asked them 
to help him, for their country's sake as well as the 
King's, in a matter of some delicacy. He was un- 
willing to send persons from England to be collectors 
of the revenue arising under the Stamp Act, since 
the appearance of these strangers as tax-gatherers 
could not but be hurtful to colonial feelings. He 
therefore begged that the agents would give him the 
names of men of good repute and liking, in their 
several parts of the country, whom he might take 
steps to have appointed collectors of this revenue. 
For Pennsylvania, Franklin submitted the name of 
Mr John Hughes, but in doing so he neither 
signified his own approval of the Act nor his opinion 
that Mr Hughes would accept the post if it were 
offered him. Folk in America, however, gathered 
only that Hughes had been appointed collector under 
the hateful Act, and that his nomination, if not the 
Act itself, was Franklin's work. Hence the emotion 
and the riot aforesaid. The riot did no great harm 
to him or his, and the emotion gave place to more 
worthy feelings when the truth of the matter came 
home, as it did, by a later ship. 

Meanwhile Franklin was working away, inter- 
viewing ministers and other public men — " ex- 
plaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual 
hurry from morning till night " — during all the 
second half of that year and the first weeks of the 

237 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

next one. The new government consisted mainly 
of friends of America, many of them personal 
friends of his. The most powerful friend of all, 
however, was the enormous section of the British 
mercantile and manufacturing class, which found 
itself being ruined by the sudden disappearance of 
America as a market for British goods. These good 
men passed from astonishment to dismay, and from 
dismay to desperation ; and before the end was 
reached, their clamours filled the lobbies of the 
House of Commons. Ministers saw that there was 
nothing for it but to repeal the unfortunate Act, at 
all costs to the pride of the people, or the self-will of 
the King. To strengthen its hands before attempt- 
ing to do so, the Ministry held a famous Enquiry at 
the beginning of the year 1766. A Committee of 
the whole House sat for many days receiving evidence 
from men of every class, occupation, and description, 
who had any, even the remotest, experience of, or 
connection with, America or American affairs. The 
Enquiry is famous, however, mainly on account of 
the evidence given in the course of it by one witness, 
whose testimony was of so remarkable a character, 
and covered so completely the whole ground of the 
Committee's reference, that it has extinguished for 
us, and really rendered superfluous at the time, that 
of all the other witnesses together. Needless to 
say, this witness was Benjamin Franklin. Of this 
celebrated " Examination of Dr Franklin before the 
House of Commons," it would be impossible to 
overstate the significance and value, whether re- 
garded as a contribution to a great historic question, 
or as a revelation of the many powers of the man 
himself. In both respects it was surprising, and in 
both respects it created a profound impression both 
in this country and in America. In America, it put 
new heart and patriotism even into the most fervent ; 
in England, it informed those who were already 

238 



HIS LATER LIFE 

most deeply informed in American affairs ; and to 
those who had long known and admired Franklin it 
revealed a compass of qualities, a faultless fulness of 
knowledge, and a control equally of his knowledge 
and his powers, which went beyond all that they 
expected even from him. They were men of affairs, 
and some of them men of talent, who examined 
him ; and the questions were subtly and searchingly 
put, for the purpose of placing him in at least a 
momentary difficulty. Yet Edmund Burke could 
only compare the whole scene to that of a school- 
master submitting to be catechised by his pupils. 
When Franklin withdrew from the Bar of the House, 
the apologists of the Stamp Act had not a solid inch 
of ground to stand upon. Ministers were ready to 
hug themselves for joy, and him also. And indeed 
he had done their business for them, as all of them 
combined could not have done it. His examination 
closed on February 13. Just eight days later a 
Repealing Bill was introduced into Parliament, and, 
after a debate of which the eloquence has perished 
but the glory and splendour yet somehow abide, as 
though it had been fully reported — the bill was 
carried through both Houses, and on March 8 it 
received the royal and unwilling assent. When the 
good news reached America, there was such rejoic- 
ing as that side of the world had never seen, and 
everywhere honour and acclamation attended the 
name of Franklin. 



But that was a time of quick changes in the 
political world. They were seldom changes for 
the better, and that which now followed proved 
one of the most disastrous in English history. 
Within four months of its passing the Repealing 
Act, the Rockingham Ministry was wrecked by 

239 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Court influences. Its place was taken, after a time, 
by a famous cabinet, of some of the talents and all 
the contradictions ; a cabinet which had been put 
together by Lord Chatham, but was never presided 
over by him. In the absence of any effective head 
of the Government, the different departments of 
state policy now went their different ways ; and 
those concerned with American affairs soon took a 
direction as contrary to all that Lord Chatham con- 
sidered wise or right as well could be. The dispute 
with the Colonies was wantonly revived at once, 
never to be quieted again till England had lost these 
colonies for good, and the world had thereby gained 
a new nation. The series of events which led to 
this result was initiated by the Mr Charles Towns- 
hend referred to some pages back, who had entered 
the new cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
As such, it was his business to propose schemes of 
taxation -, and the nature of the man himself, as well 
as the character of the influences continually brought 
to bear upon him, made it inevitable that he should 
use his position in order to raise again the question 
of getting a revenue out of America and — what was 
of infinitely more concern to the feelings, both of 
the King and People of this country — of getting it 
from taxation imposed upon Americans by the 
English Parliament. He addressed himself to this 
task with vigour, promptness and ingenuity. On 
March 13, 1 767, he laid before the House of 
Commons a general view of extensive plans with 
regard to America. The nature of the policy then 
unfolded is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the 
parliamentary door-keepers had orders not to admit 
the colonial agents within the precincts on that day. 
The House approved heartily of the plans submitted 
to it, and directed that bills embodying them should 
be drafted forthwith and introduced. They were 
drafted, introduced, and passed, within a month ; 

240 



HIS LATER LIFE 

and two months later all America was in a fer- 
ment. 

In the banquet of discord which the obliging Mr 
Townshend now " set before the King," the Revenue 
Act may be considered as the grand piece of provo- 
cation, the veritable piece de resistance. It was in- 
geniously concocted, but I must refer the Reader to 
the pages of Burke for a description of the many 
ingredients of contradictory motive which it em- 
bodied without managing to blend them. Three 
chief things are to be noted about it. It was an 
Act of Parliament, imposing taxation, a thing which 
Americans abhorred ; and its preamble asserted the 
general principle which they had contested so 
famously. But then, what it imposed was a duty 
on imports from Britain. So, it had an affinity with 
the duties already being paid under the Navigation 
Act ; the principle of which had been admitted as 
constitutional and just by Franklin in his examination 
before the House. But again, the scene of collection 
was now to be in America ; so that there should be 
no question any more as to the jurisdiction of Parlia- 
ment, or the validity of its Acts, in that country. 
The inhabitants would see the tax-gatherer in their 
midst, and they would know who had sent him. 
Further, the proceeds of the taxes were to go to 
form a Civil List ; out of which the governors of 
colonies, and presently other officials, were to receive 
their salaries from the King. This innovation would 
make the relation of the people to the Governors that 
of a subject population in a conquered province to 
officials set over them by a distant despot : to whom, 
and to whom alone, these Governors would feel 
that they owed either respect or kindness. Finally, 
it was indicated clearly that this was not the end, 
but that more would follow as occasion served or 
the need arose. 

Small wonder, then, if the resistance opposed to 
Q. 241 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

this new attack was fierce and general. As the 
commotion exceeded that created by the Stamp Act, 
so the measures of retaliation proposed were of a 
more drastic and defiant kind. Not only was the 
non-consumption of British goods again resolved 
upon, but the different colonies now decided to set 
up all sorts of manufactures for themselves ; not for 
the occasion only, but for the rest of time. It is 
scarcely possible for us nowadays to conceive how 
extreme, how unnatural, how monstrous almost, 
this decision of Americans to make for themselves 
the pins, nails, beaver hats and cutlery which they 
needed, seemed to honest, home-staying English folk 
in those days. Even friends of America felt that 
the colonists were going very far indeed ! And 
since " all minds were now employed in considering, 
all pens in defending, the rights which Mr Towns- 
hend's Acts invaded," there presently resulted an 
immense intellectual development of the whole sub- 
ject, a development of all its bearings in the con- 
sciousness and daily thoughts of men. This in 
itself was fast creating an entirely new situation, not 
to be nullified by the half-hearted undoing, on the 
part of the mother-country, of that which it had 
been an insult as well as a wrong to do at all. The 
history of the six or eight years that followed might 
be set forth as an illustration of this text, and very 
full of moral interest it would be. This, however, 
is not the place for it, so the Reader can only be 
reminded of two or three important dates. One day 
in September 1 768 — eighteen months after the 
passing of the Revenue Act — fourteen British men- 
of-war lay with their broadsides towards the town of 
Boston, to cover the landing of 700 British soldiers. 
" With muskets charged, bayonets fixed, drums 
beating, fifes playing, and a complete train of artil- 
lery," these took possession of the Common, the 
State-house, the Court-house, and the Fanueil Hall, 

242 



HIS LATER LIFE 

where those famous town-meetings of the Boston 
citizens had been held. An apparition like this did 
not bode reconciliation : but the people being help- 
less, the peace was kept for a time. About eighteen 
months later, however (March 1770), occurred the 
affair between soldiers and populace, known as the 
Boston Massacre ; a trivial affair in itself, but im- 
mensely dynamic in its moral effects. A little after 
this came an incomplete, and therefore ineffective 
repeal of the Revenue Act ; the tax on tea being 
retained for the sake of asserting the principle. But 
as Americans, strange to say, still gave no orders for 
this taxed tea (though they were really going to 
have it cheaper than they had ever had it before) 
the King induced ministers to have four ship-loads 
sent into American ports, thus bringing temptation 
very near the door. From New York and Phila- 
delphia the ships were ignominiously sent back. At 
Charleston the people unloaded the tea, and stored 
it in cellars, where it perished. But at Boston the 
Governor would not permit the ship to clear out 
again, as the people demanded that it should ; so a 
lawless band, disguised as Red Indians, went aboard 
and emptied the cargo into the harbour. This was 
in December, 1773 * an ^ both in England and 
America the state of popular feeling was now such 
as to leave small prospect of a speedy, if indeed of 
any, renewal of kindness between colonies and 
mother-country. To such a pass had it come, in so 
few years. But though the years were few, the 
time seemed an era to those who had to bear the 
burden and the strain of them ; to those who, like 
Franklin, called to the difficult part of mediators, 
had to deal with each day's difficulties as they could, 
every new day in all that time bringing its own 
changes of hope and fear. 

To treat of Franklin's life during this period with 
sufficient fulness to make the account interesting 

2 43 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

would be to write not a biographical sketch but 
a very long chapter in general history. The effect 
of it all would be to show that, apart from any 
particular transaction in which he may have been 
concerned, the mere fact of his presence in England 
during those years was a historical factor of the first 
importance. And it was a factor which, so long as 
it counted for anything, counted for preservation of 
the peace between England and her colonies. His 
great intellectual and moral prestige dignified in the 
eyes of all, and especially in the eyes of Ministers, 
the cause which he stood for ; a cause which might 
else have been more summarily dealt with, as official 
contempt for the claims of a troublesome pack of 
people on the fringe of the Empire might have 
dictated. It was impossible to regard in that way 
the people who had a Benjamin Franklin for their 
advocate and representative man. Franklin's many 
social qualities also, which gained him friendships 
even in circles least sympathetic to the American 
cause, enabled him to exercise an influence which 
cannot be verified in detail, it is true, but the absence 
of which for a single season would, we cannot 
doubt, have greatly affected the course of events. 
And, as a fact, it was not until the hour when that 
influence was withdrawn — until the hour when 
Franklin, giving up the long struggle with the 
forces of arrogance and blindness, bade farewell to 
these shores and sailed for home — that England gave 
a head to the counsels of final rigour which changed 
her children into enemies and lost her an Empire. 
While he remained here, also, his influence with his 
countrymen, which was very great in spite of the 
distance and in spite of the tendency of the colonists 
to suspect ever and again that they were being sold 
to the enemy, was of great effect in the service of 
moderation. He was as much a patriot as any man 
in America, and few in America had such a reasoned 

244 



HIS LATER LIFE 

faith as he in the justice of his country's claims 
and her power to make them ultimately prevail. 
But at the same time he knew also the great- 
ness of England, and was acquainted with those 
good qualities of the English people which were 
not apparent for the moment in its political re- 
lations to America. Therefore, while urging 
his countrymen not to grow faint in maintaining 
their rights by all constitutional means — and 
especially by persisting in their non-importation 
resolutions with a unanimity which would leave no 
doubt of their being in earnest — he was none the 
less explicit in his disapprobation of all those (they 
were a small but dangerous band) whose idea of 
patriotism tended to express itself in words of 
provocation and acts of violence, whereby concilia- 
tion would be made more difficult. Thus it came, 
that while some in England, finding that Franklin, 
for all his reasonableness, was as firm as bed-rock 
on the great principles at issue, described him regret- 
fully as being " too much of an American " for their 
purposes — at this very time the more forward set 
among his countrymen were apt to insinuate that, 
after all, Franklin was " too much of an Englishman " 
to be really heart and soul with the patriots in 
America. This absurdity, however, which was the 
property of a few, belongs to the later and more 
morbid stages of the disagreement. Upon the 
whole, his prestige was as high amongst his country- 
men at this time as it was in Europe, and by the 
year 177° he found himself invested with the Agent- 
ship for four of the colonies. The Agentship for 
Massachusetts, especially, gave him a good deal of 
difficult work to do, owing to the great part played 
by that province in the events which developed the 
Revolution. For a time, indeed, he was able to do 
little in the matter, since that self-conscious, vain, 
and vacillating would-be martinet of office, Lord 

M5 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Hillsborough, 1 refused to recognise his appointment 
as valid. Franklin has left a most dramatically- 
written minute of their famous interview, in which 
the whole man Hillsborough, both the individual 
and the type, is set before us with almost creative 
talent. Franklin's studies of the course of action in 
the years of Lord Hillsborough's management of 
colonial affairs are all summed up in an essay called 
" Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small 
One." This had an immense success at the time, 
and was at once so matterful and so spirited in com- 
position that Franklin himself was very well pleased 
to have been the author of it. It was reprinted as a 
pamphlet in London twenty-six years later, in order 
to meet a steady public demand for copies, when the 
things it referred to were very ancient history 
indeed. Another literary jeu d } esprit of this period 
(1770-3) was " An Edict by the King of Prussia:" 
a very sly composition, in which that German 
potentate was represented as claiming to impose 
upon England (a country long ago colonised by 
emigrants from his dominions) those duties and 
burdens of obedience and tribute which England 
was actually seeking to impose on America. This 
thing was cast in the form of an exciting piece 
of newspaper intelligence, enclosing a verbatim 
version of the alleged startling edict. Scores of 
well-informed folk were deceived by it for some- 
thing more than a moment, and thousands were 
amused for at least a week. As for Lord Hills- 
borough, Franklin was instrumental in having him 
removed from office, in July I77 2 > an ^ had some 
influence in the choice of Lord Dartmouth as his 
successor. A better choice could not have been 
made, if good-disposition towards all parties, and an 
honest desire to be useful, and to conciliate, had 

1 Appointed, at the end of 1768, head of the newly-created 
department called the Colonial Office. 

246 



HIS LATER LIFE 

been qualifications enough for the post. But Dart- 
mouth, as it proved, had not that independence of 
judgment and that force of character that would 
have been needed to undo, and to undo quickly 
enough, the evil which had been done during Hills- 
borough's four years' term of office. Though there 
was now better ground for hope, fulfilment some- 
how tarried; and meantime matters were moving 
apace at the other side of the world. At this 
critical juncture it was that England, in a momentary 
indulgence of all that is worst in her national temper, 
saw fit to deprive herself of the services of the 
one man whose presence here made conciliation still 
possible, the one man who was capable, even yet, of 
holding the Empire together. 

One day towards the close of 1 772, Franklin was 
talking to a friend, a member of Parliament, about 
American affairs. He spoke with some warmth of 
the recklessness of ministers in persisting as they 
did in a policy of provocations and reprisals ; to 
which he could see no end save a complete change 
and alienation of American feeling towards England. 
It was possible for him, he said, residing in this 
country and knowing the people, to view the various 
ill-advised acts of policy as merely the acts of poli- 
ticians, and to allow a great deal for personal char- 
acter and for personal purposes. But in America, 
men could take little account of such considerations, 
even if they were in the temper to do so. They 
would only see, in all that had been attempted or 
done in the name of this country during recent 
years, an expression of the feelings towards them of 
the British people. His friend replied that Franklin 
was in error in assuming that ministers were entirely 
to blame, or that the policy which had worked so 
badly had been originated solely by them. He could 
assure him that the measures which he more par- 
ticularly complained of — the introduction of an 

247 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

English soldiery to overawe the people, and the 
rendering of Governors, Judges, and other officials, 
dependent on the King for their salaries — had been 
first urged upon ministers by natives of that country, 
resident in the country, and held in the highest 
respect there. In proof of what he then said, he 
brought to Franklin some jlays later the batch of 
correspondence known to history as the Hutchinson 
Letters. 

These were a series of letters which had been 
written, during the years 1 768 and 1 769, by Thomas 
Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, to a correspondent 
in this country. The name of this correspondent 
had been carefully erased before the documents were 
placed in Franklin's hands ; but the general drift 
and subject-matter of the letters indicated clearly 
enough that they were meant to meet the eyes of 
someone in a position to influence the plans of 
Government towards America. It may be explained 
at once (what Franklin did not know till later) that 
they had been addresbed to Mr William Whately, a 
member of Parliament, then lately deceased. At the 
time when the letters were written, Hutchinson was 
Lieutenant-Governor and Chief-Justice, and Oliver 
was Secretary, of the colony of Massachusetts Bay ; 
while Whately was then private secretary to Mr 
George Grenville, of Stamp Act renown. Though 
ostensibly addressed to Whately, the letters had 
really been written for Grenville's information and 
misguidance. That gentleman was not himself in 
the Government in 1768-9, but many of his friends 
were ; and to him and those friends the writers 
looked to have the policy which they recommended 
brought into force. As a fact, they had not looked 
in vain. There was a strong family resemblance 
between the recommendations of Messrs Hutchinson 
and Oliver and the recent measures of the British 
Government ; nor could anv bureaucrat seated at 

248 



HIS LATER LIFE 

the heart of an Empire have greater faith in the 
blessed efficacy of vigour and rigour, rigour and 
vigour, than those denaturalised natives of a distant 
province. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson is here 
found bravely declaring his conviction that " there 
must be some abrogation of English liberties" in 
that part of the world ; while Mr Oliver has an 
ingenious scheme for getting rid, in some degree, of 
the prevailing prejudice in favour of social equality, 
and so arresting that democratic tendency which is 
such a lamentable feature of colonial life. It is 
urged again and again that a sufficient stand of 
imperial troops ought to be kept in the country, to 
support the governors in enforcing whatever new 
laws might be imposed invito populo. Perhaps the 
most mischievous feature of these letters, however, 
was the fact that they so seriously misrepresented to 
the home authorities the state of public feeling in 
America. That there was any general or national 
sentiment in the country was ignored or explicitly 
denied. The opposition to the Revenue Act, it 
seemed, was limited to a prominent minority of the 
population ; and behind the recent display of resist- 
ance there was nothing but the personal influence of 
a few agitators. These, of course, could be removed 
by the exercise of a little proper vigour — and then ! 
Altogether of this nature, in a word, were the 
Hutchinson Letters. That they had a considerable 
influence cannot be doubted, even though one may 
hold that things would have gone almost equally 
astray without the misdirections which they afforded. 
We know, as a fact, that King George, who had so 
great a part in all that was attempted in those years 
in regard to America, attached particular value to 
the opinions of Mr Hutchinson. That gentleman 
had now been advanced to the Governorship, with 
Oliver succeeding him in the lieutenancy. Thus the 
pair were still undivided. Governor Hutchinson 

249 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

was at that moment (end of 1772) in high conflict 
with the Assembly and people of Massachusetts, and 
was indeed making no little trouble for the home 
Government by the provocative attitude which he 
maintained. 

But our concern is with Franklin. The reading 
of these letters produced upon him an impression at 
first startling and painful, and yet in the end restora- 
tive and cheering. It was painful indeed to discover 
that such counsels as these had been secretly sent to 
England by men who were Americans born ; to know 
that the forces of coercion had received not only 
support but persistent prompting from those who, 
by ancestry, birth-place, up-bringing, social standing, 
and official position, were called upon, more than 
most others, to be the sympathetic interpreters of 
their countrymen's views to the English Government. 
In making themselves the mouthpiece of views so 
adverse, they had done evil to their country. And 
the evil had been done in a clandestine way which 
invested the whole correspondence, in the eyes of a 
patriot like Franklin, with an additional character of 
baseness, of conspiracy, almost of treason. But then, 
just in proportion as Hutchinson and Oliver were to 
be condemned, in that degree, also, was the English 
Government to be exonerated. It was liable enough 
to go wrong of its own initiative ; and the English 
character is more prone than others, the world 
admits, to arrogance and self-righteousness. But it 
was somewhat to be excused, surely, for not doubt- 
ing its own justice and reasonableness, in relation 
to the recalcitrant colonists, when it found native 
Americans, of the standing of Hutchinson and Oliver, 
hastening to recommend just the kind of foolish 
strong measures towards which it was spontaneously 
carried by its own share and portion in the original sin 
of all governing Powers. For Franklin, these letters 
threw a flood of light upon the political events of 

250 



HIS LATER LIFE 

the past few years, and it is possible he may even 
have over-estimated their significance and influence. 
They showed, at any rate, that those measures which 
were most bitterly resented by the Colonists had 
been long advocated and preached in the secret ear 
of Government by responsible Americans, whose 
opinions could not but carry great weight with 
English ministers. From this discovery it followed, 
that there was at once less cause for anger and less 
reason for despair than there had lately seemed to 
be, even to Franklin. His own vast patience had 
begun to feel the strain and the wear of those years ; 
and across the ocean English injustice, as it was 
considered, was fast creating a new America, an 
America very full of anti-British feeling. This 
was very unlike that land as he had known it, 
and the change was to him sincerely regrettable. It 
was also a menace ; for it might presently gather 
sufficient force to make the pace in that country, and 
then the hopes of reconciliation would be small 
indeed. To avert this, and to neutralise the growing 
sense of a national animosity, Franklin considered 
that no means would serve so powerfully as the 
conveying to the leaders of opinion in America that 
new knowledge, that new side-light upon the whole 
situation, which had just come to him, and had 
affected his own feelings so favourably, so forgiv- 
ingly, towards those who were responsible in this 
country. He begged permission to send these letters 
to America. After some delay, permission was 
granted; and on December 2, I77 2 > ne enclosed 
them in his usual official dispatch, addressed to the 
secretary of the committee of correspondence of 
Massachusetts Assembly. He was not at liberty to 
explain whom he had them from : they were not to 
be copied or printed : and when they had been 
shown to the leading men of the popular party, they 
were to be returned to this country. On all these 

251 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

points he had, and transmitted to his correspondent, 
explicit instructions. 

There is not space here to follow the letters in 
their wanderings. Suffice it, that they were shown 
to many men and some women, and that their presence 
in America, if not their precise import, was soon the 
secret of a whole continent. The effect was every- 
where what Franklin had anticipated : rage against 
Hutchinson ; kindlier feelings towards England than 
had prevailed for many months. They were duly 
returned after a time ; but, Franklin's instructions 
notwithstanding, they had got into print in America. 
Copies found their way over here, the newspapers 
gave them in full, there was a great deal of annoy- 
ance in the official world, a great deal of talk 
about the matter everywhere. In all of which 
there was nothing that called for Franklin's inter- 
vention. But just when the nine-days' wonder was 
ready to die down, it suddenly started off into a new 
and untoward career of thrilling interest. Mr Thomas 
"Whately announced in the newspapers that the 
letters so much spoken of had been written to his 
late brother ; and as good as said that they had been 
stolen from the executors by Mr John Temple. Mr 
Temple thereupon challenged Mr Whately to fight. 
Fight they did at dawn of a December day, in Hyde 
Park, and Whately was badly wounded. On re- 
turning to town (he had been in the country for a 
few days) Franklin heard of this duel, and heard also 
that the gentlemen were going to fight again. He 
therefore sat down and promptly wrote the following 
letter : — 

" To the Printer or the Public Advertiser. 

" Sir, — Finding that two gentlemen hare been unfortunately 
engaged in a duel, about a transaction and its circumstances, of 
which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent, I think it 
incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of farther 
mischief, as far as such a declaration may contribute to prevent 
it) that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to 

252 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Boston the letters in question. Mr W could not communicate 
them, because they were never in his possession ; and, for the 
same reason, they could not be taken from him by Mr T. They 
were not of the nature of private letters between friends. They 
were written by public officers to persons in public stations, on 
public affairs, and intended to procure public measures ; they were 
therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced 
by them to produce those measures. Their tendency was to incense 
the mother-country against her Colonies, and, by the steps recom- 
mended, to widen the breach ; which they effected. The chief 
caution expressed with regard to privacy was, to keep their 
contents from the Colony agents, who, the writers apprehended, 
might return them, or copies of them, to America. That 
apprehension was, it seems, well founded ; for the first Colony 
agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to transmit 
them to his constituents. 

"B. FRANKLIN, 
" Agent for the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay. 

" Craven Street, December 25th, 1773." 

By this announcement, a new surprise sprang out 
of this surprising, if not sensational, subject. But 
the greatest sensation was yet to come. Franklin 
had not expected his letter to have any other effect 
than the preventing of possible homicide, and every- 
body thought he had acted with spirit and propriety 
in the matter. He was soon to find that he had 
delivered himself into the hands of enemies. Personal 
enemies, it is true, he had none in England, and of 
friends he had a great many. But the cause which he 
represented was becoming more and more obnoxious 
and exasperating to those in power. Which means 
that a growing sense of their own incapacity to deal 
with the situation which they had made for them- 
selves, against all wise advice, had begun already to 
render them morbid. Those who were disappointed 
at finding Franklin "too much of an American," 
were apt also to tell themselves, when matters came 
to this stage, and as their troubles thickened, that if 
it were not for that disobliging, therefore ill-dis- 
posed Franklin, those troubles would not exist at 
all. It is natural to the human mind to hate a 

253 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

just man; and equally natural to those who find 
themselves vainly battling against a moral principle 
and the wishes of a people, to assume that the 
interpreter and spokesman of the insurgent moral 
will is the sole maker of all the mischief. These 
and other determinants may have been at work. 
Certain it is that official England now thought it saw 
a possibility of damaging the American cause in the 
person of its most illustrious exponent ; and, no kind 
god preventing, it hurriedly took the foolish business 
in hand. 

It had been Franklin's duty some months 
previously to present a Petition from the Massa- 
chusetts Assembly, praying that his Majesty 
would be graciously pleased to remove from 
their official positions Governor Hutchinson and 
Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, as being men who 
had wrought to make misunderstanding and dis- 
peace between the different parts of his Majesty's 
dominions. Months passed, and no result of 
this petition was forthcoming. But now Franklin 
received on Saturday, January 8, I774> a Dr ^ e ^ 
and sudden intimation that this petition was to 
be considered by the Lords of Committee (to 
whom it had been referred by the King) on 
the following Tuesday ; when he, as agent for 
the Assembly, was commanded to attend. Late 
on Monday afternoon it was intimated to him 
that Messrs Hutchinson and Oliver were to be 
heard by counsel. This was short notice of an 
unusual procedure, not to say a startling fact. 
At the meeting he at once raised that point, 
submitting that the matter before their Lordships 
was " a question of civil or political prudence," 
upon which their Lordships were " already perfect 
judges, and could receive no assistance in it from 
the arguments of counsel." If counsel was heard 
on the one side, however, it ought also to be 

254 



HIS LATER LIFE 

heard on the other. He therefore craved their 
Lordships to appoint a further day for the hear- 
ing, that he might have an opportunity of in- 
structing counsel on behalf of his clients. A 
further hearing was accordingly appointed for 
Saturday the 29th of that month. 

Brief as the proceedings at this meeting had 
been, they left little room for doubt that some 
very bad intentions towards himself were pre- 
paring their hour. An inkling that this was so 
became curiously diffused ; and the Press of this 
country hastened to assume an exceedingly sym- 
pathetic attitude towards these intentions, what- 
ever they might be. Franklin suddenly found 
himself an object of general attack, and very 
precise reports reached him as to the nature and 
upshot of the performance which had been 
arranged for the 29th. 

After some difficulty in finding a suitable counsel, 
he secured the famous John Dunning, afterwards Lord 
Ashburton ; a lawyer of the highest intellectual power, 
but too often unable to do himself justice owing to 
his many physical frailties. Dunning promptly set 
aside the elaborate brief which Franklin's solicitor 
had prepared, and decided that their case could not be 
better argued than on the ground taken up by Franklin 
himself at the first meeting of the Committee. 

On the morning of the 29th there was a general 
movement of high political London towards the 
Cockpit, as the building was called, in which these 
Privy Council meetings were held. The attend- 
ance of Privy Councillors on this occasion was 
almost unprecedented : thirty-five in all sat round 
the table, which extended down the middle of 
the large oblong room. There was, besides, a 
large gathering of members of Parliament and 
other public men, and a few private persons whose 
distinction or connections had gained them admit- 

*55 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tance. Amongst the former was Edmund Burke, 
amongst the latter Dr Priestley and Jeremy Bentham. 
Everyone except the Privy Councillors had to stand 
during the whole proceedings. Franklin stood near 
the fireplace at the upper end of the room, motionless 
and erect, for a space of three hours. A few paces 
off, by the Lord President's chair, stood the hero of 
the occasion, Alexander Wedderburn, whom Mr 
Israel Mauduit, the solicitor for Hutchinson and Oliver, 
had engaged as counsel. He had been engaged for his 
special talents, which though not of the kind that 
make men honoured, were of the kind that may 
render them useful for purposes of a sort. By the 
exercise of these talents in the support of evil causes 
he rose ultimately to be a peer and the Lord Chan- 
cellor of England. Then he died, hated and despised 
even by those who had used him longest. No 
human being in his own or subsequent times has had 
a good word to say for Alexander Wedderburn. 
Even Mr Doyle, who writes American history from 
an English, not to say a Georgian, point of view, 
freely gives Wedderburn to the dogs. Even Mr 
Lecky, who is astonishingly unjust to Franklin in 
his account of this affair, calls Wedderburn the Belial 
of his profession. Even George the Third, whom 
he served so well — until he ratted from him in turn 
— said, upon hearing of his death, as first Earl of 
Rosslyn, twenty-four years later : " Then he has 
not left a worse man behind him." This was 
the creature who had been put forward on this 
public occasion to browbeat and insult one of the 
most illustrious and most honoured characters of that 
age — an old man, and one doubly entitled to respect 
not only on account of his own great qualities and 
his services to humanity, but because he was one in 
whom an entire people was proud to see itself repre- 
sented to the world. Aged just forty-one years at 
this time, Wedderburn had already made more than 

256 



HIS LATER LIFE 

# 
a beginning of his career of contemptible success, 
being now Solicitor- General in succession to Thur- 
low, that other infamy of the woolsack. 

The preliminaries having been gone through, 
Dunning opened his case. In a very brief speech — 
in which he aimed chiefly at placing the question at 
issue upon a ground where it would not be necessary 
to touch the dangerous topic of political rights and 
wrongs as between colonies and mother-country — 
he submitted that " the Assembly did not come 
before the throne demanding justice ; they appealed 
to the wisdom and goodness of their Sovereign. 
They asked a favour, which the King could grant or 
refuse." The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor 
had lost the confidence of the people ; the petition 
was there as the expression of that feeling. But, 
" no cause was thereby instituted, no prosecution 
was intended. ... As the Assembly had no im- 
peachment to make, so they had no evidence to 
offer." Though this was one of Dunning's bad days, 
and he could scarcely speak so as to be heard, the 
impression created by this unexpected line of argu- 
ment was distinctly favourable. Yet in proportion 
as the spirit of it was magnanimous and wise, it 
really gave the case into the hands of the unscrupu- 
lous Wedderburn. That hero advanced to his task 
as to a scenic display, a declamation, or a prize-fight. 
The speech which he proceeded to deliver showed 
the highest abilities of the lowest kind, and is worthy 
of a more careful analysis than can be given to it 
here. It began with a passage in which he magnified 
the legal and constitutional importance of his case, 
and at the same time contrived to appeal powerfully 
at the very outset to the prejudices, political and 
national, of the auditory which he addressed. He 
then passed to a laudation of Governor Hutchinson, 
from which that gentleman issued in an anointed con- 
dition, with a brevet of utter blamelessness, that would 

* 257 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

have astonished himself. His ancestry, his training, 
his own inherent virtues, his studies, his experience, 
his disposition towards the people of Massachusetts — 
all conspired to make him, it seemed, the ideal of 
what a governor should be. A review of his career 
in that office justified these expectations, exemplified 
these virtues. At this point the speaker cleverly 
availed himself of Dunning's admission that no 
impeachment was made by the Assembly, that no 
evidence was offered. " AH that the members of 
this hostile Assembly can say is that they do not 
like Governor Hutchinson ! " It would have required 
less cleverness than Wedderburn's to make this point 
tell, as he did. He was now able to make a transi- 
tion to the subject of the letters, a subject which 
was, nevertheless, entirely foreign to the business of 
that meeting. If it ivas the case, he said, that the 
Governor and his colleague had in some degree lost 
that universal confidence which had hitherto belonged 
to them, the fact was due solely to the mischievous 
sending of their letters to Boston by Franklin. " Dr 
Franklin therefore," he said, u stands in the light of 
the first mover and prime conductor of this whole 
contrivance against his Majesty's two governors ; ,: 
and he went on to describe Franklin as having come 
to that meeting with the sinister purpose of putting 
the finishing touches to his diabolical work. He 
next enlarged with astounding effrontery upon the 
alleged private character of the famous letters. "How 
those letters," he said, " came into the possession 
of anyone but the right owners, is a mystery 
for Dr Franklin to explain." After speaking with 
emotion of his own intimate acquaintance with 
the lamented Whately — and of that gentleman's ex- 
ceptional discreetness, especially in regard to all his 
correspondence — and of the profound pain of his 
brothers at finding the said Letters had fallen into 
evil hands — he continued thus : " These Letters, I 

258 



HIS LATER LIFE 

believe, were in his custody at his death ; and I as 
firmly believe that without fraud they could not 
have been got out of the custody of the person 
whose hands they fell into. The Letters, I say, 
could not have come to Dr Franklin by fair means. 
The writers did not give them to him ; nor yet did 
the deceased correspondent. Nothing then will 
acquit Dr Franklin of the charge of obtaining them 
by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malig- 
nant purposes : unless he stole them from the person nvho 
stole them" Then the orator, his indecency accumu- 
lating momentum as he went, half turned towards 
the venerable philosopher and thundered thus : " I 
hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, 
for the honour of this country — of Europe — and of 
mankind ! He has forfeited all the respect of 
societies and of men. Into what company will he 
hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the 
honest intrepidity of virtue ? Men will watch him 
with a jealous eye. They will hide their papers 
from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will 
henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a Man-of- 
Letters: this Man of Three Letters ! " This classical 
allusion, 1 by which he publicly called Franklin a 
Thief in the presence of half the political and social 
power of England — it was reckoned the intellectual 
triumph of that great display ! And perhaps we 
should come away from the feast with the taste of 
that sweet morsel in our mouths. One famous 
passage, however, must be quoted. After having 
descanted, with overflowing unction, upon the 
injury done to the memory of Mr Whately — the 
unhappiness caused to the surviving members of 
that affectionate family by the desecration of their 
archives — the subsequent confusions which had 

1 To a well-known tag of learning, taken from Plautus : in one 
of whose plays a thief (Latin % /ur) is called Homo irium Utter arum 
(** A man of three letters "). 

259 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

almost involved the lives of other men — the peril of 

murder which his own respected friend had barely, 

very barely, escaped — he then proceeded to set 

Franklin's letter to the Morning Advertiser in a 

surprising new light : as the act of a gloating fiend. 

" After the mischiefs of this concealment had been 

left for five months to have their full operation . . . 

at length comes out a letter, which it is impossible to 

read without horror, expressive of the coolest and 

most deliberate malevolence. My lords, what poetic 

fiction only had penned for the breast of a cruel 

African, Dr Franklin has realised and transcribed 

from his own. His, too, is the language of a 

Zanga. 

" 'Know then, 'twas — 71 
/forged the letter — /disposed the picture 
/ hated — / despised — and I destroy ! ' " 

The remaining passages were equally worthy, and 
some of them more subtle, but none had the arrest- 
ing and terrific character of this great outburst. 
What is of more importance to record is that no one 
arrested the orator in his flagrant career. No one 
took exception to the irrelevance, the gross im- 
propriety, of intruding the subject of the Letters 
into the business of that place and hour, and of 
giving the proceedings the complexion of an im- 
peachment of Dr Franklin. Least of all did any of 
these representatives of the King and the Law, the 
Constitution and the honour of England, resent the 
astonishing indecency and brutality of this attack 
upon a man so eminent, and who, had he been the 
lowest of criminals, was not there upon his trial. 1 
The assembled Privy Councillors, from the Lord 
President downwards, manifested the utmost pleasure 

1 As a fact, the question of the Letters was then strictly tut 
judice, a Chancery suit with regard to them having been instituted 
by Whately. The suit was not persevered in ; those who had 
instigated the bringing of it having, as it turned out, managed 
to get their business done sufficiently well at the Cockpit. 

260 



HIS LATER LIFE 

in the whole entertainment, and accompanied their 
creature through all his grosser passages with a 
chorus of encouragements, laughter and applause. 
Of all the members of the Court and Coercion party 
in that room, Lord North himself, it is recorded, 
was the only man who behaved becomingly through- 
out, short of actually interfering. The Privy 
Councillors, however, were the more worthy re- 
presentatives of their country, as its temper and 
feeling were then : for the enthusiasm with which 
men read the printed speech a few days later was 
absolute and national. To return, however. When 
Wedderburn ceased, the proceedings were at an 
end. Dunning essayed some kind of reply; but 
the fatigues of standing three hours were alone 
enough to have rendered him, as he now was, 
physically non-effective. The meeting broke up in 
a buzz of excitement. Franklin moved from the 
place in which he had stood — motionless, statuesque, 
attentive — during all that time. In passing out, he 
clasped the hand of an old friend, but said nothing, 
and went home alone. That was about one o'clock 
on Saturday. At the hour of breakfast on Monday, 
he received a curt and formal intimation that the 
King " had found it necessary " to dismiss him from 
the office of Postmaster-General for America. So 
no time had been lost ! Nay, the report of the 
Committee was dated on Saturday, and had, likely 
enough, been draughted and ready before the 
hearing took place. It was a fitting sequel and 
souvenir of that well-arranged and admirably carried- 
out performance. It condemned the Petition and 
the petitioners in tumid and aggressive terms, and 
went aside to make a cowardly attack upon Dr 
Franklin. The hearing had been a farce ; the report 
was a falsehood. But both were intended for the 
Public ; and both reached their mark and made their 
impression. Which is the highest and happiest suc- 

261 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

cess of state-craft among a people delighting to 
think itself free. 

Franklin had shown an astonishing self-command 
during the whole of the scene just described ; nor 
did his strength or dignity forsake him for a moment 
in the days that followed. He made no pretence of 
not being moved, but how deeply he was moved we 
can only guess. He was, at least, as much astounded 
as shocked, he was more concerned than angry ; for 
he thought of what it all meant, what it was meant 
to mean for his country. It was America that was 
insulted in him ; and the temper signified by Wed- 
derburn's speech, and still more by the delight with 
which that speech was heard, promised little con- 
sideration for any new petitions or protests that 
might be forwarded to England. As to the attack 
upon himself, he set about preparing a reply to it ; 
but the serious aspect which public affairs soon 
developed, and the rate at which things began to 
move, soon drew off his attention from what was a 
comparatively personal and negligible wrong. He 
felt sure that time would right him. And it has 
done so, long ago, in the judgment of all the world, 
except a few good men in this country who still 
cherish the political views and the personal dislikes 
which were an anchronism and a misfortune when 
George the Third was King. Make the best of it 
that we may, the 29th of January 1774 was a dis- 
graceful day for England. Whether it was also a 
fateful day, is a question quickly asked, but not to be 
answered in a word. I do not think myself that 
Franklin really became, on that day and in his secret 
soul — neither on that day nor for long afterwards — 
that which he was called later, not without merit, 
the arch-rebel of the Revolution. What took place 
at that time was this : his inherited, compulsive, 
active, much-contriving love for England received a 
blow, from which it never again recovered. There 

262 



HIS LATER LIFE 

remained only, to carry him through his task as 
mediator, that general benevolence of intention, that 
desire to save and to serve, which he had towards 
all the human family. So he worked for a while 
longer, as we shall see ; but perhaps the strength of 
the heart was not in these labours. One somehow 
regards the twelvemonth which he was still to pass 
in England as being merely an empty interval be- 
tween his issuing from the Cockpit and his step- 
ping on board the ship that was to carry him home. 
Still more did it seem so to his contemporaries, 
who knew nothing of the secret labours which 
engaged him during that interval. Their imagina- 
tion leapt the space separating the Privy Council 
outrage and the Declaration of Independence, and 
saw these two events as a dramatic sequence of 
historic cause and effect, historic crime and punish- 
ment. And there is a sense in which they were 
right. There is a sense in which there is literal 
truth in the famous epigram of Horace "Walpole : 

Sarcastic Sawney, swoll'n with spite and prate, 
On silent Franklin poured his venal hate. 
The calm philosopher, without reply, 
Withdrew, and gave his country liberty 1 

But, as already indicated, before he withdrew he 
assisted loyally in some further efforts to avert the 
rupture that was fast becoming "inevitable." For 
a study of his character these months are worthy 
of close attention ; but as nothing of historical im- 
portance came of all that was attempted, we may 
pass quickly here. After the Privy Council affair, 
Franklin kept as much as possible aloof from 
ministers and their social circle, though going into 
general society as much as formerly. The effect of 
his abstention was soon felt, and ere the year was 
out both sides in politics were seeking his aid. To 
the latter half of 1774 and the beginning of 1 775 
belongs Chatham's memorable intervention, when he 

263 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

threw off the load of sickness and came to the rescue, 
if rescue there still might be, of the State. He 
worked hard and studiously at the great problem for 
several months ere coming forward with his solution ; 
and during that time he had frequent long consulta- 
tions with Franklin, both at his own place in Kent 
and at Franklin's lodging in B Craven Street. On 
January 31, 1775, he submitted to the House of 
Lords the resolution which he considered was the 
necessary first step in any overtures of conciliation : 
" That the troops be withdrawn from Boston." It 
was rejected with scorn and anger. Undeterred by 
this rebuff, and unwarped from his patriotic purpose 
by feelings of pique, the great statesman introduced, 
about a fortnight later, his Conciliation Bill. It was 
thrown out without consideration. In the course of 
that sitting, one noble speaker went aside to make 
an attack upon Franklin (who was in the House at 
the time), and called him " one of the bitterest and 
most mischievous enemies this country had ever 
known." In his reply, Chatham rebutted this slander 
with eloquence and magnanimity, and spoke of 
Franklin (" the gentleman alluded to, and so in- 
juriously reflected on ") as one " whom all Europe 
held in high estimation for his knowledge and wis- 
dom, and ranked with our Boyles and Newtons — 
one who was an honour not to the English nation 
only, but to human nature." To 'have been previ- 
ously vilified by a Wedderburn was perhaps a small 
price to pay for the privilege of being so vindicated 
by a Chatham. But the scene is important because 
of the deep impression which it left on Franklin's 
mind. When he saw that even this great man, who 
had done such mighty things for England, could yet 
scarce secure a decent hearing, could certainly not 
secure a moment's respectful consideration for his 
proposals, when he attempted to establish a possi- 
bility of conciliation with America — then, indeed, for 

264 



HIS LATER LIFE 

the first time, Franklin thought of England and the 
English, in so far as the governing classes repre- 
sented either, with hopelessness and contempt. 
Such a House of tetchy, childish, puffy Lords pom- 
pously scowling out such a man as Chatham — it was 
indeed a sight to make a cynic. Yet if there was 
anything to choose between the Lords and the Com- 
mons, the former, he recognised, had the greater 
claim upon his respect. For they were the more 
honest, as being, upon the whole, less needy. 

When the noble Sandwich permitted himself to 
speak of Franklin as " one of the bitterest and most 
mischievous enemies this country had ever known," 
his lordship may not have been aware that his own 
colleagues were even then, and had been for months 
past, engaged in continual secret negotiations with 
the said bitter and mischievous enemy. Of these 
negotiations, however, since they were secret, and 
since nothing came of them, and especially since the 
story would require a score or two of pages for its 
proper telling, I shall not attempt to give any account 
here. 1 Nevertheless, it is curious and worth re- 
membering that while responsible supporters of the 
Government were referring to Franklin, in Parliament 
and in the Press, as one who was walking the streets 
of London when his proper place was a cell in New- 
gate, at that very time Government (and a Higher 
Power, in those days, than the ostensible Govern- 
ment) were actually doing what Chatham had bravely 
said that he would do if he were in their position : 
they were " calling to their assistance the gentleman 
so injuriously reflected on." But they were not 

1 Following the example of Mr Morse, who, although he 
writes a book, and his subject is Franklin the Statesman, yet 
rightly pleads that " the story will not bear curtailment nor admit 
of being related at length " within his limits. Readers may be 
referred to Bigelow's "Life of Franklin," ii. 256-338 ; or (for an 
abridgment about half as long as this Memoir) to the second 
volume of Parton. 

265 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

doing it publicly, as he said that he would do. That 
qualification, to what had else been a sign of saving 
wisdom, was vital, and meant much. The same 
half-will to reason the matter out ; the same conflict 
of anxiety and pride, pride having always the last 
word ; the same desire to secure the future without 
recanting the past or making just the present ; the 
same reluctance to cancel a wrong or to acknowledge 
a right — all worked to ensure that of these nego- 
tiations, which lasted from November till March, 
nothing should come in the end. Their interest is 
now mainly moral and psychological, and here 
Franklin is seen to be very great. More than his 
precision, his strong grasp, his broad view, one is 
astonished, as the time goes on, at his patience with 
those people, who clearly do not know their own 
minds, and display not a little of that famous British 
inability to understand the mind of others, or to 
believe, at least, that there can be much in it. The 
impossibility of doing anything with them seems to 
have saddened rather than disgusted him. He had 
presently a more personal reason for being sad. For 
just when it was possible at last for him to leave 
England, after having again and again deferred his 
departure for yet another season, and another, at the 
entreaty of the well-wishers to both countries — just 
when he saw that the day of his usefulness, if not of 
his safety, was nearly done in this country, and that 
it was time to be getting back among his own folk, 
who might still have use for him — came the sudden 
news of his good wife's death. Every spring and 
every autumn since he set sail, ten years ago, she 
had hoped to welcome him home. In 1774 she had 
written that if he did not get back that autumn, she 
felt that he would never see her alive again. And 
so it proved ; for though a hale woman, she fell 
away suddenly, and died after a few days' illness at 
the beginning of the year. Whatever the patriot 

266 



HIS LATER LIFE 

may have thought, the man and the husband must 
have regretted a little that last season of all, that one 
season too many, taken from their lives together, to 
give to the service of his country ; to the service 
also, had they had the grace or sense to see it, of 
those in this country who were even then making 
him the daily mark of their ill words and their worse 
intentions. But at any rate his term was now almost 
done, and his ship would soon sail. He respectfully 
took leave to close the time-wasting business with 
their various negotiating lordships, and placed the 
affairs of the Massachusetts Assembly in the hands 
of his successor-designate, the famous Arthur Lee. 
Then, posting from London to Portsmouth, he em- 
barked for Philadelphia on March 21, 1775. Little 
as he expected it, he was to find, on arriving there, a 
scene of things which would engage him in a new 
life of labours, with an object very different from 
the one which he had hitherto cherished and served. 
But at least it is true, as his biographer 1 says, that 
" Down to the packing of his last trunk, he had still 
striven, with all the might of his genius, his wisdom, 
his patience, and his wrath, to save entire the great 
empire of his pride and love." 



The ship dropped anchor in the Delaware, opposite 
Philadelphia, on the evening of May 5, and Franklin 
slipped quietly home before information of his arrival 
had got about. But in a few hours the news was 
over the whole city and was speeding through the 
province. It was everywhere received with joy, a 
joy heightened by some circumstances of the hour 
that were news to him when he came ashore. While 
the ship that brought him was still sixteen days from 
home, hostilities had broken out between the King's 

1 Parton, vol. ii. p. 65 
267 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

troops and the colonists ! The affair of Lexington, 
the battle of Concord, had thrown the whole country 
into a thrill of amazement and expectancy. The 
appearance of Franklin among them at such a moment 
was dramatic, opportune, auspicious ; it was hearten- 
ing beyond words. The country was like to have 
need of all her sons, the strong in council, and the 
strong in arms ; and here was her greatest of all, 
alighted, as it were, from the clouds at this juncture! 
Early on the morning after his arrival, the Pennsyl- 
vania Assembly hastened to appoint him one of its 
delegates to the second Continental Congress, which 
was to meet in that city a few days later ; and 
Congress, when it met, hastened to appoint him to 
almost every separate business which it took in hand. 
A mere catalogue of the committees he served upon 
would take up too much of our space, and to 
describe his operations and interests fully would be 
to write the history of the colonies during the next 
eighteen months. A few of these must be men- 
tioned j and something must be said to explain that 
development of his feelings which changed him, 
hitherto as convinced an Imperialist as Cecil Rhodes 
or the great Lord Chatham himself, into the arch- 
separatist and the chief agent — always excepting the 
good King George — in wresting her colonies from 
England. 

One of the first things the new Congress had to 
take thought for was the reorganising of the Post 
Office, with a view both to facility and to safety. 
Government in those days had small respect, either 
in England or the colonies, for the alleged sacredness 
of private correspondence even in times of peace. 
No added sanctity, to say the least, would belong in 
its eyes to the correspondence of those who were 
already described as " rebels." Congress therefore 
took possession of that service, and placed at the 
head of it Benjamin Franklin, with the title of 

268 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Postmaster-General. He did his work as an 
organiser so well that the system which he then 
instituted did not need to be recast, in any essential 
respect, in a hundred years of unparalleled national 
expansion and progress. Another scene in which he 
did redoubtable service was the Pennsylvania Com- 
mittee of Safety, of which he was chairman. The 
business of this committee was " to arm and defend 
Pennsylvania ; to call out, drill, and organise the 
militia ; to provide supplies and ammunition ; and to 
issue bills of credit to pay for the same." Here he 
appears in a new character, as the Vauban of the 
Quaker colony ; for some of the most effective 
defences, especially a famous marine chevaux-de-frise y 
to keep the British from coming up the Delaware, 
were expressly designed by the chairman himself. 
At a later time he presided over the Convention 
which framed the Constitution of Pennsylvania, and 
no man better fitted for such a function ever lived. 
As to the committees of Congress he served upon, 
their number seems legion, and their business 
"Whatever men do" who are in the act, the hope, 
or the peril, of waging war. The earliest met at 
six in the morning, and he would carry the energy of 
his great calm mind from one to another till nightfall. 
Although he took as little part in mere debates 
as he could, and made no oratorical displays, the 
country was full of a sense of his presence and his 
value, and was proud of the one and grateful for the 
other. There was no subject upon which his work 
or his word was not of value, so he was wanted for 
all subjects. Thus, when General Washington 
wrote a lamentable tale of how his extemporised 
army was melting away and he saw no means, on 
the present lines, of continuing any kind of military 
operations, Franklin must needs be one of the Com- 
mission of Three sent by Congress to consult with 
him, and to frame a plan for putting the defence of 

269 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the country upon a permanent basis. From Phila- 
delphia to Cambridge was a thirteen days' ride 
(begun on October 4), and the conference lasted four 
days. The result was that scheme of a continental 
army, speedily put into execution, by which Wash- 
ington was able to carry on a seven years' war. But 
Franklin came back from that conference an altered 
man. 

When he left England he was far from consider- 
ing the old cause as lost. Its state was indeed 
serious, and there was like to be further trouble ; 
but there was no necessity to assume that the trouble 
would be different in kind from that which had been 
more or less continuous since the passing of the 
Stamp Act. He saw that nothing but a display of 
unanimity, firmness, and strength on the part of the 
colonists, and the loss to English commerce which 
the non-importation policy would go on to make 
increasingly felt, was likely to bring England to a 
sense of the folly of being on bad terms with her 
sons across the sea. That she should decide to 
enforce her point and settle this family disagreement 
off-hand by starting to destroy buildings, burn 
towns, and slaughter men — it was a contingency 
which he may have contemplated, as he contemplated 
every other, but he regarded It as a very remote one. 
On arriving, he found that a sort of beginning on 
these lines had actually been made, and that the 
country was organising to resist the invasion of its 
liberties which such acts portended. He was at 
once with the fighting party in such a cause. It 
was, however, only a fight for freedom as yet, the 
English freedom of English subjects, not a war for 
the independence of Americans. There were a few, 
a very few in the entire country, who looked towards 
that goal ; and Franklin was not of them. Just as 
little, however, was he of that timorous band, headed 
by John Dickenson of Pennsylvania, who anxiously 

270 



HIS LATER LIFE 

deprecated, even after midsummer of I775> even 
after Bunker Hill and Charlestown, any measures 
which might " have a bad effect " upon the minds of 
people in England. These were for sending petitions 
to the King, even at that time of day ; whereas 
Franklin put more faith in a permanent Union of the 
colonies, and drew up a plan for effecting it. The 
plan was reserved for a later time, however, since it 
was deemed advisable, Franklin himself consenting, 
that the futile and stultifying petition to the King — 
yet another of these disgraced and disregarded peti- 
tions to the King ! — should go forth in the name of 
Congress. This was done, that the "moderate " men 
should not seem to have been overborne in the 
National Council, and that the fate of the petition 
might convince them when the arguments of their 
compatriots and colleagues had failed. And the 
event was according to the forecast : the almost 
dramatic and spectacular contempt with which that 
petition was treated in England made up the minds 
of thousands in America. And meantime, as one 
scene of slaughter succeeded another, the royal 
troops always taking the initiative, it grew more 
apparent to the colonists that what had occurred 
earlier in the year was no affair of an unfortunate 
rencontre or an administrative blunder, but the 
carrying out of a steady policy of haughty subjec- 
tion 5 of a determination to bear them to the ground 
and then dictate to them on what terms they were to 
live. So these months, the summer and autumn of 
I 775» saw a heightening of feeling that was pre- 
paring the way for a momentous general change of 
mind and policy. Thus it was with Franklin more 
than most men. No man then living knew both 
countries so well as he, and none could judge so 
securely the waste, the gratuitousness, and the 
wrong. The absurdity also, the outrage upon com- 
mon sense it must have seemed, when he thought of 

271 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

who they were, those governing persons so far 
away, who claimed to dispose of the property and 
make forfeit the lives of those industrious Americans 
around him, who were not indebted to them for life, 
nor for a crumb of bread. But those fatuous 
governing persons could send armies into this distant 
country ; and though they could not reason, nor 
understand reason, they could destroy, and destroy, 
and destroy. Many expedients — he had proved it 
at the cost of his own patience — had seemed insuper- 
ably difficult to them ; but the last, the most brutal, 
and, to a humane mind, the most difficult of all — 
into that they could throw themselves with a light 
heart. So he reasoned, remembering the past and 
looking round at the present ; and to him, reasoning 
so, Bunker Hill and the burning of Charlestown left, 
of his old allegiance for England, but a very slender 
filament of remembered feeling by the time October 
of that year had come. Then he went to the con- 
ference with Washington. "When setting out to 
return home, accounts reached him of the wanton 
destruction of Falmouth in Maine, by British men- 
of-war ; neither church nor school spared ; the 
houses which had escaped the cannonade deliberately 
fired by the torch, marines being landed to carry out 
that splendid exploit ; all the shipping burned, so 
that the poor people should neither have the means 
of restoring their fortunes nor of finding food — and 
all this done on the verge of a northern winter ! 
Such was the wisdom and mercy of the King, whom 
some folk were still for petitioning ; such were the 
rights of sovereignty and, to Americans, the bless- 
ings of the English connection. Whatever others 
might think of it, Franklin resolved at once that 
rights like these were to be warred against by all 
good men, and that the sooner the egregious con- 
nection ceased to exist, the less anomalous the world 
would be. If he had doubted at all before, he had 

272 



HIS LATER LIFE 

done with doubting now. From this moment he 
devoted himself utterly — every power of his mind, 
every fibre of his body — to the cause which he now 
publicly declared for, the Independence of America. 
My topic not being the history of the Revolution, 
I can do little more than name rapidly the three or 
four chief events with which he was connected 
during the next twelvemonth. In the winter of 
1775-6, the Colonists, accepting what was a tacit 
declaration of war against them by the Mother- 
Country, had begun military operations against the 
British forces in Canada. After opening well, these 
operations became inglorious, if they did not bring 
disgrace. Congress decided early in the spring to 
send a commissioner to see if its affairs could not be 
retrieved somewhat ; and in spite of his seventy 
years and two months, it chose to send Franklin. 
Never sparing himself in his country's service, he 
did not refuse the duty now imposed upon him ; 
but the journey into these Polar regions went near 
to killing him ; and though he came back alive, he 
felt for many a day afterwards the effect of the hard- 
ships then undergone. As to the situation there, it 
was fairly irretrievable, and he reported to that 
effect. Two pieces of good news gladdened his 
heart on getting back. The first was that a plenti- 
ful supply of gunpowder was now on hand. The 
second was that during the past two months Inde- 
pendence had been gaining new adherents by the 
hundred every day. It was no longer the whispered 
word of two or three, but the war-cry of a growing 
host. This was good hearing ; and he threw him- 
self with a will into making that disposition prevail 
more and more. In June the great issue was fought 
out in Congress and the momentous Resolution 
carried. Franklin was one of a committee of five 
appointed to draw up a Declaration ; but the Declara- 
tion was the work of Thomas Jefferson alone. A 

s 273 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

few days later came the first Fourth of July in 
universal history. Eight days later still, arrived off 
Sandy Hook Franklin's esteemed friend Lord Howe, 
bringing overtures of conciliation ; and a fleet and an 
army (a second army) to enforce them with. On 
September II, there took place, in a hut on Staten 
Island, a picturesque conference between Lord Howe 
and a commission consisting of Franklin, John 
Adams, and Edward Rutledge, who had been sent 
by Congress in compliance with Lord Howe's 
request, to hear what his lordship had to offer. The 
Commissioners sat very tight, and his lordship was 
bound by his instructions, so between the two parties 
matters got no forarder. His lordship, indeed, had 
nothing ready for immediate offer, save the King's 
pardon for those who would give in their submission. 
Pardon, submission ! — these were not the things that 
Americans were asking or giving eight weeks after 
the Fourth of July. So the Commissioners with- 
drew ; and Lord Howe continued his negotiations 
with the help of two armies and a fleet. Against 
such arguments one needed to have a strong case ; 
and the eyes of Congress looked across the world 
for signs of aid. Better than watching and waiting, 
was to go and seek for it, go and ask it. So, on 
an evening towards the end of October, there slipped 
secretly out of Philadelphia an old man of seventy- 
one accompanied by two boys, his grandsons. Early 
next morning they rode from Chester on the 
Delaware to Marcus Hook, three miles beyond, and 
embarked on board a sloop of war — the Reprisal 
sixteen guns — which was waiting out of sight to 
receive them. Then the sloop stole down the river 
and put out into a wintry sea. The old man was 
Benjamin Franklin, accredited Envoy to the Court of 
Versailles. 



274 



HIS LATER LIFE 



Franklin was not venturing into a strange world 
in going to France for aid, nor into one where an 
interest in the American cause had yet to be created. 
During his residence in England he had paid visits to 
the French capital, and had been received with the 
distinction which his fame as a savant, and his 
European prestige as a practical moralist, could not 
but ensure for him in that city of the philosophers 
and the economists. He made also many friendships 
of that kind, that fervour and fastness through life, 
which he had the gift of making wherever he went. 
These, like every other power or acquisition of his, 
were now at the service of his country. When a 
Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed in 
November 1775, he had written at once to men on 
the continent of Europe who would have moved the 
world, or tried to, at his request. And some of 
them had effected much, before the following 
summer was come. There was indeed a very general 
social and popular interest in the subject of American 
insurgency throughout all Europe, but especially in 
France : an interest sympathetic in the highest 
degree. In France there was also an interest felt by 
statesmen, an interest of special vivacity, in the pro- 
gress and upshot of England's quarrel with her 
colonies. For if the colonists were to shake them- 
selves free, as they well might, then the balance of 
power as between England and France would be 
more comfortable to contemplate than the issue of 
the last war had left it. Those two kinds of interest 
in the question — that of popular enthusiasm and that 
of political deliberation — met and fused in the mind 
of Caron de Beaumarchais. As a privileged person 
at court and almost a statesman (on occasion) with- 
out an office, he maintained for some months his 
parable that the historic juncture involved almost a 
call of destiny to the Most Christian King, to come, 

275 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

to the aid of the insurgent colonists and so, by 
breaking the power of an insulting enemy, secure 
the safety of France for generations. His eloquence 
and ingenuity, however, made no headway against 
the reluctance of the King and the wisdom of 
Turgot. But when Turgot was dismissed, Beau- 
marchais' views received the qualified support of the 
new Foreign Minister, the Comte de Vergennes, 
and the King complied in part. Direct intervention 
was on all grounds out of the question, but some 
degree of aid might be extended to the Colonists. 
For this benevolent purpose, a comic-opera scheme 
of the Enthusiast's own conceiving was put into 
execution about the middle of June 1 776. With 
a capital of a million livres (advanced by the court) 
Beaumarchais opened a commercial house with a 
Spanish style and title. Its business (a mystery to 
passers-by) was really to ship to the English colonies 
all sorts of military supplies, receiving as payment 
consignments of American produce. The operations 
of the house were for a few months most successful, 
several ships laden with contraband having been got 
safely away. But as no return consignments appeared, 
the operations of the house began to be hampered 
owing to overtrading or lack of funds. They were 
still more hampered presently owing to the repeated 
remonstrances of the British Ambassador, angrily 
calling attention to the kind of business being done 
by Roderique Hortalez & Company. The innocent 
French Government, surprised and shocked, promptly 
put the ships of that firm under lock and key. But 
though some would manage, somehow, to get away, 
yet no consignments of produce came to off-set the 
account. Towards the end of the year, all life was 
gone out of the venture. The head of the house 
was dejected ; not so much at being insolvent as at 
being out of favour at court. It was alleged that 
but for his gross imprudence in certain places, the 

276 



HIS LATER LITE 

British lion would not have roared in that painful 
way. Now since July he had been acting along with 
Mr Silas Deane, who had been sent to Europe early 
in the year by Congress (or by Franklin) with some- 
what vague powers and purposes as a commercial 
and political agent and envoy to the world at large. 
While things went well with Beaumarchais, they 
went well with Silas Deane. But when the former 
became insolvent and fell into disgrace, the latter 
lost at once his only^means of subsistence and his one 
influential ally. I cannot sing here the Iliad of the 
woes of Silas Deane ; a good man not heroically 
strong, who was marooned on a populous strange 
continent, the unsalaried representative of a pack of 
rebels, and who heard, as the months went by, no 
news nor report of his country but the rumour of 
her downfall, and who expected to find himself 
some fine morning placed beyond the frontier at 
the request of the British Ambassador, or handed 
over, a recreant traitor, to the tender mercies of his 
sovereign. To him thus besieged by distress and 
perplexity and fear, and ready to capitulate, came 
news on December 7 that Dr Franklin had arrived 
at Nantes. And to Silas Deane it was as if an army 
had come to his relief, an army with banners ! 

And if it was not at once followed by such a dis- 
play of reversing power as the metaphor seems to 
imply, it is none the less true that his coming had 
a moral effect almost as striking and as instantaneous 
as its spectacular value. The latter could hardly 
be exaggerated. No piece of news in those years 
so arrested the attention of mankind as the news 
that Dr Franklin — who but yesterday had been in 
Philadelphia, and the day before in the midst of a 
Canadian winter outside of the world — had suddenly 
appeared in Paris, the intellectual and diplomatic 
centre of Europe. It was more than a nine days' 
wonder ; and nobody doubted it might portend im- 

277 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

mensities. To Paris, and to the French people, it 
was not more a wonder than a joy. The American 
cause, in which all minds were interested and so 
many hearts engaged, had now for its defender and 
representative in their own midst a man so famous 
that hardly any name in the world at that time com- 
manded such a universal respect as his. Amongst 
the learned, the wise or the intellectual he was re- 
garded as an elder and chief; amongst the mass of 
the people he was conceived of as a benefactor of 
the race, a parent by adoption of the whole human 
family. " Franklin's reputation," says John Adams, 
speaking of what he saw, on coming to France a 
year later, and what was little to his liking, " was 
more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, 
Frederick or Voltaire ; and his character more be- 
loved and esteemed than any or all of them." And 
not only the many friendships which he had already 
formed there, and to which he returned as to the 
enjoyment of an estate, but also that comprehensive- 
ness of his, that humane universality for which he 
was unmatched among men, went to render his 
sojourn in a strange land seem but an exchange of 
country - seats, each equally in his native air. 
Amongst his fellow-men, whatever language they 
spoke, he lived always at home, as among a nation 
of friends and kinsmen : whereas all other Americans 
were acutely conscious of the fact that English- 
men were British, and that Frenchmen were 
Foreigners, and were not so conscious as they 
might have been that they themselves were Pro- 
vincials. And the longer Franklin's friends in any 
country knew him, the deeper became their admira- 
tion and the warmer their esteem. Even on the 
plane of high politics, as in social relations and in 
private life, the personal qualities of Franklin were 
effective, and made a way for him through many an 
impasse. It would have gone hard with his country, < 

278 



HIS LATER LIFE 

in the years that were now to follow, had not many an 
effort been made, had not many a point been stretched, 
for the sake of the man, which would scarcely have 
been undertaken, so willingly, for the cause alone. 
Thus, while the whole course of his past life, and 
the secular growth of his fame, went to invest him 
with such an interest for the imagination as rendered 
him virtually Ambassador to the People of France, 
his authentic personal qualities secured for him in 
time, as longer acquaintance made them better 
known, a second privilege and ascendency as one 
who was an esteemed friend, and almost a col- 
league, rather than a foreign envoy, in the eyes of 
the Ministers of Louis XVI. 

The terrible shaking of that voyage through thirty 
days of November storm had left Franklin very 
feeble ; so that though he reached Nantes on 
December 6, he did not continue the journey to 
Paris till about a fortnight later. With his arrival 
there on December 21, the external history of the 
American Revolution begins to have an official 
character. He found Deane in Paris, and on the 
following day they were joined by Arthur Lee. 
Both of these were joint-envoys with him, Deane 
being already in France, and Lee in England, when 
the Commission of Legation was appointed. On the 
28th, the envoys had an audience of the Foreign 
Minister, the Comte de Vergennes. The most 
notable gain from this audience was an assurance 
that the hospitality of France would in no case be 
withdrawn from them : that the King was resolved 
to protect them while they chose to reside in his 
dominions. For the rest, there was a hint or two 
for their guidance in the diplomatic system of things, 
and a request that they should prepare a statement 
of their proposals, to be placed in the hands of M. 
Gerard, the Secretary of the Council. This was 
soon done ; and within a few days after its delivery, 

279 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

M. Gerard came with a verbal reply. The tone of 
the reply was friendly in the extreme, but the general 
effect was non-compliance with the specific proposals. 
This was hardly wonderful, seeing that compliance 
with almost any one of them would have been 
equivalent to an instant declaration of war with 
England : and it was yet to be seen whether the 
Colonists were worth anything to themselves — to 
say nothing of their allies — in so great a venture. 
Nevertheless, the friendly disposition of the King 
and his advisers was as good as admitted, the Envoys 
being told that whatever countenance it might be 
possible to afford them, without impairing the 
neutrality of France, would always be gladly given. 
As a token of this good feeling, an unsolicited loan 
of two million francs, free of interest and not repay- 
able till the end of the war, was at the service of 
the Commission. These were not small mercies, 
all things considered ; and they gave a basis for 
large hopes. It must be remembered that the 
current omens, as seen from Europe at that actual 
hour, were not auspicious for the Rebels or 
for those whom they might contrive to associate 
with their sin. The last public news was of 
American defeats, the latest official information was 
of yet greater English armies getting ready to sail j 
and here, in Paris, was Lord Stormont again re- 
monstrating. All which things notwithstanding, it 
somehow happened that, not long after the inter- 
view just spoken of, two of Beaumarchais' ships — 
Beaumarchais, again in some miraculous way made 
solvent — managed, in spite of severest orders and 
strictest vigilance, to get safe to sea ! 

The year Seventy-seven, regarded as a whole, 
was essentially the waiting time of the Revolution. 
Yet in Europe, as in America, it was a time of brisk 
action as well as of grave anxiety and deadly lull. 
Franklin directed the one or endured the other, so 

280 



HIS LATER LIFE 

far as they belonged to this hemisphere, in the quiet 
of a house within a garden, situated in Passy, at that 
time a semi-rural suburb of Paris. A large part 
of a great mansion there, the Hotel Valentinois, 
had been placed at his disposal, and that of his 
colleagues if they would share his occupancy of it, 
by the owner, M. Le Ray de Chaumont, one of 
Franklin's most fervid admirers and warmest friends. 
So thither he migrated early in the year, and here 
set up his establishment as became an Envoy ; far 
enough from Paris to secure quiet, and to seem but 
a private dweller in a land which could not officially 
recognise his presence in any other character. 

This rural seclusion and private innocence not- 
withstanding, Franklin was very full of work of 
a public and even death-dealing kind. That is, he 
soon found himself in the position of Admiralty to 
a little fleet of privateersmen who waged war upon 
England in the narrow sea and in neighbouring 
waters. Their operations were so successful that 
England, or at least English merchants, began to 
feel that these islands were in a state of blockade. 
Lord Chatham spoke in Parliament of " our com- 
merce " being " torn to pieces " by them. So dire 
were the doings, or at least the impressions created, 
by three or four such tiny craft. Tiny as they were, 
they gave almost as much trouble and anxiety to 
their admiral on land as to their enemies at sea. 
For the brave commanders would assume that they 
might bring their prizes into French ports, as into 
Boston or Falmouth, and sell them there ; and it 
was Franklin's weary task to awaken in them some 
small respect for the law of nations or (oftener still) 
to obviate the perilous consequences of their trans- 
gression thereof. Before the end of February they 
had collected about a hundred British seamen, 
prisoners of war. With these victims on hand, the 
Envoys thought well to approach the English Am- 

281 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

bassador on the subject of an exchange. After some 
eight or ten weeks' interval, and in reply to a second 
letter, they heard at last from his lordship. That 
is, they received a piece of official notepaper, un- 
dated, unsigned, and containing only these great 
words : " The King's Ambassador receives no 
applications from rebels, unless they come to implore 
his Majesty's mercy." The retort of the Envoys 
was more severe than this was crushing, and quite 
as dignified. " In answer to a letter," it ran, " which 
concerns some of the most material interests of 
humanity, and of the two nations, Great Britain and 
the United States of America, now at war, we 
received the enclosed indecent paper as coming from 
your Lordship, which we return for your Lordship's 
more mature consideration." But though Lord 
Stormont was a little unfortunate in his style, and 
was considered to have rendered himself ridiculous, 
his attitude was correct enough and implied a view 
of the situation which was, to say the least, excusable 
in a British Ambassador. At any rate it was a view 
from which the British Government could not be 
induced to recede by any argument, save the argu- 
ment of triumphing arms. 

And as the year wore on, it grew less and less 
likely that the envoys would have that argument in 
their favour. The career of the good captains, if 
bright, was brief, and as autumn turned towards 
winter the seas that had known their renown knew 
them no more. From America came no direct news, 
and if any rumours came, they were only of defeat. 
Intelligence from England was all to that effect ; 
the hands of Government strengthened, armies 
victorious, the American cause regarded as lost by 
those who had wished it well. On the continent, and 
even in France, the same conviction gaining ground. 
And with this darkening of prospects, an ebb of 
resource. No prizes were being brought in now ; 

282 



HIS LATER LIFE 

even that good ally, Beaumarchais, was at the end 
of his efforts. Towards the close of October the 
envoys were fain to ask the French Government 
to buy from them a frigate which was then being 
built to their order in Holland : so little chance did 
there seem of its being allowed to sail. And such 
melancholy tokens. Yet even at this time, in a lull 
that was heavy with hopelessness, and when the 
outlook was into sheer darkness, Franklin did not for 
a moment lose his calm, or even his confidence in 
the ultimate — nay, in the proximate — success of his 
country's fortunes. He was not only steady him- 
self, but he made others steadfast : he impressed 
even Arthur Lee with a sense of his greatness. 
And when, upon the back of this, came news that 
Philadelphia was taken, and the good Silas Deane 
was thereupon for going to the French Ministry 
to demand an alliance at once, under a threat of 
their making terms, else, with England — Franklin 
stood firm against that counsel of panic also, as 
being inconsistent with the dignity and the interests 
of his country. Seldom in history has there been 
such sublime and unshakable confidence as this : and 
never perhaps was such confidence so dramatically 
and swiftly justified. For it was but a week later 
(December 4, 1 777), that a carriage dashed into 
the courtyard of the Hotel Valentinois, and there 
sprang from it a young man who had travelled 
hard over land and sea, all the way from Massa- 
chusetts, to announce to the representatives of 
America in Europe that General Burgoyne and 
his whole army were prisoners of war. 

Whether the victory at Saratoga had definitely 
secured American Independence for the rest of 
time, was a matter not to be ascertained in half 
an hour ; and its probability might have been 
comfortably discussed for a good part of a year, 
without anybody being proved completely in the 

283 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

wrong, in those days before the telegraph. But 
the fact that so signal, and by all tokens so 
decisive, a success had been achieved by the 
colonists at the end of a two years' resistance 
to the forces of an Empire, afforded ground 
enough to go upon for a Government that was 
already prepared to recognise the independence 
and sovereignty of the United States, as soon as 
the situation of affairs gave any colourable pretext 
for doing so. It was not war against England 
that the French Court relucted from, but the 
somewhat delicate act of intervention. Saratoga 
removed those scruples ; and the Government, 
having promptly come to a decision, acted upon 
that decision with simplicity, directness and speed. 
On December 6, the envoys received, along with 
the congratulations of the Ministry, a request that 
they would now renew their application for an 
alliance. The application was soon put in form and 
delivered, and soon reported upon. On December 
17 M. Gerard came to Passy to announce that the 
French Government had decided to make a treaty 
with the United States. In the crowded days then 
following, there was much unprofitable activity of 
smaller wits, much quiet, swift and sure work of 
one calm and comprehensive mind, in the neighbour- 
hood of the Hotel Valentinois. The effects of the 
former being eliminated, those of the latter remained ; 
and appeared when, on February 6, 1 778, there 
were signed and sealed Three Treaties between 
the King of France and the Congress of the United 
States. The first was a Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 
which bound the two nations to be good friends, 
to trade fairly, and to allow no superior advantages 
to any other nation. The second was a Treaty of 
Alliance, and had reference to the events likely to 
arise out of the action of France in thus according 
international recognition to the revolted colonists. 

284 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Recognition was intervention, and intervention 
would probably mean war. France here bound her- 
self never to withdraw from that war, should war be 
made upon her, till the Independence of the United 
States had been achieved ; the States in turn bound 
themselves not to make peace on any terms short 
of Independence ; and neither party to the treaty was 
to make a separate peace or a separate truce without 
the consent of the other first obtained. The third, 
or Secret Treaty, merely provided for the entry of 
Spain into this compact at a later time. All three 
treaties, indeed, must be secret treaties for the next 
few days, because of certain ships then at sea. 
But the mask was laid aside, the position of affairs 
revealed to the world, on March 20, 1 the date of the 
famous reception of the American Envoys by the 
King at Versailles. One ought rather to say, the 
reception of Dr Franklin and his Associates ; for 
that is how that memorable function phrased itself 
to the imagination of contemporaries. Everybody 
has read, somewhere or other, references to the pro- 
found impression his appearance there created 5 his 
serenity and benevolence of aspect, his dignity, and 
yet portentous audacity ; his own personal white 
locks worn instead of the wig proper and imperative, 
an oaken staff in his hand in lieu of the sword of 
ceremonv ! Neverthless, there was too much cere- 
mony in all this for the British Ambassador, who 
departed next morning without taking leave. 
Franklin remained to make up for the void thus 
left in the hearts of all Paris ; and perhaps all 
Paris was never so full of Franklin as now. To 
this spring of 1 778, it may be noted, belongs another 

1 It had been revealed to the British Ministry a week earlier, 
in a rescript handed in by the French Ambassador in London on 
March 13. In this document the United States were declared to 
be in full possession of Independence, the Treaty of Amity and 
Commerce " between the two nations " was formally announced, 
and the Treaty of Alliance was not obscurely indicated. 

285 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

appearance of his, which had an immense appeal for 
the hearts aforesaid : namely, his appearance upon 
the same platform with Voltaire at a meeting of the 
Academy of Sciences on April 27. The great con- 
course of scientists and philosophers which filled the 
room, becoming possessed by one feeling and one 
wish, refused to be satisfied until these two — a 
Solon and a Sophocles, as they were in their eyes — 
had been made to approach from their respective 
seats and embrace each other — " a la j ran false /" — to 
the universal delight. But such gaieties belong to 
the biography of one of the other Franklins, not 
to that of the Statesman with whom we are here 
concerned. 

If the treaty of alliance lifted the weight of anxiety 
from the envoys, it also increased the burden of 
work, the main share of which was from the first 
borne by Franklin. The outbreak of war between 
France and England rendered possible a resumption 
of those naval operations into the direction of which 
he had thrown himself with such zest in the spring 
and summer of the previous year. The business of 
the brave had been hampered then by the want of 
any port to fly to, for safety or supplies, nearer 
than the other side of the Atlantic. To be sure, 
nearer ports had been sought ; but difficulties had 
been apt to result, which were not to be created 
too often. The cessation of France's neutrality 
threw open all French seaports to the so-called 
privateers, which preyed upon British commerce, and 
sometimes engaged British warships not unsuccess- 
fully. With the buying, equipping, commissioning 
of these craft Franklin had everything to do ; and 
when they returned from conquest, he was the 
prize court that kept them on the right side of 
the law and also apportioned the spoils. Adjudi- 
cating the quarrels or disarming the jealousies of 
rival captains was a harder and more perilous task, 

286 



HIS LATER LIFE 

but he faced it with skill and courage. As an 
example of his courage one would like to quote a 
letter which he wrote to a certain Captain Landais, 
undeterred by the fact that this captain was a 
Frenchman and half a maniac. But the most im- 
portant business growing out of the new conditions 
on which the war was waged, was that with re- 
ference to the American prisoners in England. A 
few days after receiving the great news of December 
4, the envoys had written to Lord North request- 
ing that agents appointed by them might be per- 
mitted to have access to these prisoners and do 
something, by periodical small doles of money and 
the distribution of comforts, to render their con- 
dition less wretched. His lordship returned a 
courteous and even conciliatory reply, and practically 
granted the request. He even said something now 
about an exchange of prisoners : which was equal to 
recognising the rebels as belligerents. But a little 
later Government showed more reluctance to com- 
mit itself definitely to that position ; and although 
an engagement to make an exchange was given in 
the spring or early summer of 177$, *t was not 
until the end of March in the following year that 
the first cartel ship sailed for France. Into nc 
business did Franklin ever put his heart so greatly 
and simply and transparently as into this. He stuck 
to his task and maintained his plea indefatigably 
through months of discouragement and disappoint- 
ment, and some of the letters which he wrote in 
this cause are among the finest monuments to his 
character. 

At the same time he was rearing another such 
monument, not immediately visible to all, and least 
pleasing to those who were privileged to watch it 
rise, in the steady mind with which he met a long 
series of secret overtures made to him by the English 
Government. From the moment when the news of 

287 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Burgoyne's capitulation reached Europe, that Govern- 
ment had recognised the danger if not the certainty 
of a Franco- American alliance being ratified forth- 
with. The prospect caused a singular sweetening 
of temper towards the rebels, a desire to end the 
quarrel with them, even upon terms which a little 
earlier it would have been considered an insult for 
the rebels themselves to have proposed. Hence the 
procession of secret emissaries who began to appear 
at the Hotel Valentinois about the middle of 
December 1777. The 'object of these first comers 
was to avert, while yet there was time, any " fatal 
treaty with the House of Bourbon." Their arrival 
did not interrupt the work, then going on, of draft- 
ing the three treaties. When the Treaty of Amity 
and Commerce was formally announced, war against 
France was the only reply which the feeling of the 
country, to say nothing of the pride of Kings, made 
possible. But the procession of secret emissaries 
kept on its way, all the same, right up to high 
summer of 1 779* The object now was to sunder 
the allies, that France might be left to fight alone ; 
and to secure this, England was now willing to 
grant any concessions, short of absolute and formal 
independence, which the colonists could dream of 
enjoying. Though the earlier of these appeals 
implied an assumption that the colonists were fools, 
and the later ones that they were caitiffs, yet they 
were mostly good if misguided men who came on 
that errand. Also they were sufficiently numerous, 
and they were sufficiently varied in their personal 
attributes and social style, to contribute, by their 
regular apparition from time to time, a distinct strain 
of human interest to life at Passy, during a period 
of twenty months, and even to enrich Benjamin 
Franklin's acquaintance with the moral types of 
mankind. Which is all that needs to be said about 
them here. 

288 



HIS LATER LITE 

One would be glad to dismiss in like summary 
fashion two or three other persons who, during 
half the period, at least, of Franklin's service in 
France, made life interesting in a very different 
sense. Their claim to be more intimately re- 
membered, however, cannot be passed over ; for 
to ignore the degree in which they increased the 
difficulties of his position and his task would be 
to leave the account of his services, and of the 
merit implied in rendering them at all, vitally 
imperfect. It was a period in which his endurance, 
his self-forgetting patience, was as magnanimous 
and rare as his wisdom in counsel and in manage- 
ment was unmatched. The touchstone of one half 
of the greater qualities of Benjamin Franklin was 
the active-minded, small-brained, self-enamoured and 
evil-thinking Arthur Lee of Virginia. If that great 
colony gave to the Revolution its Complete Hero in 
George Washington, it gave also, in Arthur Lee, one 
whom it is only not quite accurate to describe as the 
Complete Cretin or the Complete Cad of the Revolution. 
He was not really a cretin, for he had plenty of 
intelligence of • a trivial kind, and a deplorable 
abundance of uncontrolled and misdirected reason- 
ing power. Neither was he exactly what you 
would call a cad ; for besides belonging to a 
very good family, and having had an English 
Public School and University education, he was a 
fairly honest patriot of his shallow kind, and even 
wore a certain pseudo-elevation of style about him 
so constantly that the theatrical property became 
the man. But he was fussy, as only a fool is fussy. 
He was vain, as only a being imperfectly developed, 
and therefore self-conscious and uneasy, can be vain. 
He was jealous, as only a man of acute narrow intelli- 
gence and restive conceit can be jealous. He had a 
mania for doing, and for meddling, and for modify- 
ing. Above all, he had a mania for suspecting, 

T 289 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

whenever anything was being done, or was not being 
done, for reasons of which he was not advised, or in 
a way of which he did not approve. The fact that 
the thing was being done by somebody else, or that 
the way was somebody else's way, was a sufficient 
reason why Arthur Lee should first disapprove ; and 
then suspect; and then hint his suspicions of that 
person ; and finally reach the stage of boldly slander- 
ing him with perfect honesty and conviction, and an 
abundance of avouched lies. Thanks to this happy 
disposition and a complete lack of scruple in indulg- 
ing it — thanks, also, to the fact that he was personally 
unknown in America, and at the same time was 
covered by the great respect in which his powerful 
and patriotic family was held there — he was able 
for years to run a career of mischief-making and of 
petty infamy at a high plane of things. "The 
disturbance he wrought," says Mr Morse, w was 
great enough to constitute an important element 
in history. . . . He buzzed about Europe like an 
angry hornet, thrusting his venomous sting into 
every respectable and useful servant of his country, 
and irritating exceedingly the foreigners whom it 
was of the first importance to conciliate. " Another 
American writer describes him as having caused to 
his fellow-commissioners, first and last, " about as 
much trouble as did the backwardness of the French 
ministry, the zeal of the British cruisers, the laxity 
of the over-pressed Congress, and the low state of 
American credit, all put together." The same writer 
adds that " His was one of those characters which, 
though probably reasonable enough to their pos- 
sessors, seem to others to be almost miraculous in 
their littleness and meanness." The ill-will which 
a pushing, punctilious, fussy, pragmatic, mandarinic 
idiot like this must immediately conceive on finding 
himself in the smallest degree overlooked in any 
transactions, or consultations, or social attentions 

290 



HIS LATER LIFE 

which might be going forward, was pretty sure to 
come speedily into constant play when he found 
himself placed beside such an overshadowing col- 
league as Dr Franklin, among such a people as the 
French. Nevertheless, Franklin was not the chief 
mark of his malice during 'Seventy-Seven : Silas 
Deane occupied his thoughts and his pen at that 
time. But when he had accomplished the destruc- 
tion of that victim (who was recalled at the beginning 
of the following year, to be treated by Congress with 
an injustice which practically unsettled his wits, and 
caused him to abjure his country), then Arthur Lee 
permitted his mind to settle upon Franklin. It was 
very bad for his mind. For the task of subverting 
such a man was a long task, and the effort was, in 
effect, futile ; so that what with the glooms of 
disappointment, and an almost hysterical exacerba- 
tion of animosity, which the long obsession had 
created, Arthur Lee makes his exit from Europe 
in the condition of a quite presentable and well- 
dressed monomaniac, but a monomaniac all the 
same. But in the interval he was able to do a 
vast amount of mischief, and to create an atmo- 
sphere of anxiety and uncertainty, an atmosphere 
of conflict and cabal, in the midst of which 
Franklin had to keep his patience and serve his 
country as best he could. His country in the 
meanwhile, as he was perfectly aware, was well 
on the way, at any moment, to treat him as 
unjustly as it had treated the luckless Deane; so 
consistently and continuously did the wretched 
Lee send his official packets full of insinuation, 
and his private letters full of lies, across the 
Atlantic. For Lee could command a powerful 
interest there; and for his policy of thwarting and 
stinging and teasing, he had the support in Paris 
of his brother, William Lee, and his melodramatic 
crony, Ralph Izard, both members of legation. 

291 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Such men are, in the literal sense of a valu- 
able and misused phrase, not worth a damn, so 
we need not damn them. But the attention 
would not be altogether wasted on a much better 
man, Mr John Adams. That is a name for which 
Americans have a respect, but which it is per- 
mitted to a British person who is, anyhow, more 
interested in Franklin, to regard with some dislike 
and contempt. A perception of the good points 
of Mr Adams lessens the dislike, but rather 
increases the contempt : for such a man ought to 
have known better. At any rate, when John Adams 
— the strong and honest John Adams, second Presi- 
dent of the United States — came to Paris in the 
spring of 1 778, taking the place of Deane, he 
fairly threw himself into the arms of the Lee 
coterie, and, without directly countenancing the 
extravagancies of Lee himself, yet took up an 
attitude of ill-disposition towards Franklin, which 
was an invaluable support to those weak-minded 
malcontents. For this unfortunate and dishonour- 
ing attitude of Adams towards his great country- 
man, Lee is largely to blame, since he "initiated" 
his new colleague to such effect, that it took 
Adams, working hard at the accounts and the 
general state of things, the better part of a year to 
unlearn what he had been taught, upon his arrival, in 
a few conversations or a short course of hints. But 
the bulk of the blame must fall directly on Adams 
himself, for the root of the evil was in his own 
nature. His vice was the vice of Arthur Lee, with a 
personal difference. Arthur Lee was suspicious and 
also jealous ; John Adams was jealous, morbidly 
jealous, and only rarely, and as a consequence, 
suspicious. He was jealous of the greatness, the 
importance, of other men. On that account he 
was jealous of Washington, of Hamilton, and of 
Franklin ; and years after all three were dead he 

292 



HIS LATER LIFE 

would become almost furious at the mention of their 
names, or at the citation of an opinion of theirs, 
though it were in his own praise. Of course he did 
not arrive at that stage in a day j but even for the 
John Adams of 1778, France was not the proper 
place, nor Franklin — " the illustrious Dr Franklin ! " 
— the most fortunate colleague. Not to linger over 
the matter, let me merely say that this covert ill-will 
of Adams, as yet not very definite nor very hearty, 1 

1 That came later ; but as I shall not be able to find room in the 
text for the train of minor events out of which Mr Adams's more 
confirmed animosity arose, I may refer to the matter here. 

Upon the Joint Commission being dissolved, Adams returned to 
America in the spring of 1779. But by next February he was back 
in Europe, having been sent thither by Congress, somewhat pre- 
maturely, in the capacity of a Peace Commissioner. De Vergennes, 
who had not much liking for Mr Adams, yet wished to make the 
best of him, and showed him a great deal of civility upon his re- 
turn, and invited him to communicate from time to time. Very 
pleased with himself thereat was Mr Adams ; and being pleased, 
became fatuous, and went headlong. That is, he fell into a way 
of communicating his views, generally on affairs that were not 
within his province, in very long letters to de Vergennes, too 
often, and for insufficient reasons. He argued with this great 
man of affairs about things that did not matter ; and upon things 
that did matter, but which were no business of his, he presented 
his views in epistolary treatises which displayed a vast deal of 
intelligence and an astonishing want of sense. The remorseless 
correctness of Mr Adams's logic did not inspire so much confidence 
as the absence of tact and almost of courtesy created disgust in 
the mind of a French diplomatist. He was not only rude — for 
the amiable expressions of the king himself, as reported by de 
Vergennes, could not escape the schoolmasterly corrections and 
settings right of this superfluous and precise self-constituted 
colleague of the Foreign Office — but he was tiresome intolerably I 
At length there came a rupture, and de Vergennes reminded him 
that, after all, Dr Franklin was the only person with whom This 
Court need discuss the matters in question. He also appealed to 
Franklin for a disclaimer, on the part of Congress, of a certain 
policy (with regard to the redemption of the depreciated American 
paper currency) which had an appearance of being unjust to 
French merchants and others, but which Adams had gone out of 
his way to champion and explain, much in the manner of a 
schoolmaster driving knowledge into an unwilling head. Finally 
he (de Vergennes) sent the whole correspondence to Franklin, 
and required him to transmit it to Congress. Here is an example 
of the kind of situation that was made for Franklin from time to 

293 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

and the ceaseless, plotting, bitter hostility of the 
microcephalic Lee, united in contributing additional 
aspects of hardship, anxiety, and almost of thankless- 
ness to that noble task — of helping his country to 
come prosperously through her struggle for Inde- 
pendence — to which Franklin had devoted the 

time by so-called colleagues. It was serious beyond words. In 
dealing with this particular instance, as with others, it has been 
acknowledged (by all the world save Adams and the sons of 
Adams) that Franklin showed the greatest wisdom, moderation, 
generosity, tact. Any other man would have taken up a high 
position, not without cause, about the gratuitousness, the meddle- 
someness of all this mischief-making. But not by a syllable did 
Franklin remind Adams that he had been wandering out of his 
province; and he gently suggested a way, as though Adams were 
a colleague who had blundered a little, by which he could easily 
make matters right. But Adams, for good and evil, was not of 
the compromising, flexible kind. He did not want that matters 
should be put right, but that he should be defended, justified, 
vindicated, at whatever cost to the general system of things, 
including his country. So his only reply was a short note to 
Franklin, saying that he also had sent the correspondence to 
Congress. 

From this time dates that animosity against Franklin which 
was a quenchless, though quiet and smouldering fire in the breast 
of John Adams as long as he lived, a fire which it has become a 
duty of piety in his successors to keep alive. They have, had a 
fortunate degree of success. Franklin's family may be said, for 
historical purposes, to have died with him, his only descendants 
being by the female line ; whereas the " House of Adams " is one 
of the acknowledged institutions of America, both in politics and 
literature. It is very conscious of itself, and perhaps dreams of a 
destiny. No minutest particular regarding it is allowed to perish. 
It has a fire-proof building for its archives, as though it were 
the House of Hapsburg. Its influence, travelling underground, 
reappears in strange places. In the Cambridge "History of the 
United States," for instance, there is a passage about Franklin — 
absurd, and to my mind disgraceful in a work of that importance 
— which says that, " The whole tenor of his life shows him to 
have been a man of no delicate sense of honour," and that " in 
what he believed to be a good cause he could be unscrupulous in 
his choice of means." I am not concerned here to examine or 
refute this. I only say that the writer (Mr Doyle) is better 
acquainted with the work of John Adams than with the character 
or even the career of Benjamin Franklin ; and that in writing the 
above words he was influenced by an unconscious recollection — 
almost resulting in verbatim quotation — of a particularly male- 
volent and absurd passage in the Life of John Adams, by his son. 

294 



HIS LATER LIFE 

remaining years and energies of a life already so full 
of works, and service, and praise, and the right to 
rest. In the story of what he had to endure from 
these causes during a course of years — years in 
which he was doing such great things for his 
country — there would be something pathetic were 
there not something magnificent and strong. The 
patience which he had with those people, his self- 
effacing endurance, his determination not even to 
recognise the evil intention or the unfriendly act by 
defending himself, until the Independence of America 
was achieved — these are a measure of the moral 
reserves of wisdom and justice and strength within 
that rich and profound nature. Be it added that the 
importance, at least, of seeing that his services were 
not lost to his country, or rendered ineffective, was 
finally recognised by Congress at the beginning of 
1779, when it sent Lafayette to France with a paper 
annulling the existing Commission, and appointing 
Franklin sole Minister-Plenipotentiary to the French 
Court. At the end of that year it took a still 
stronger step, by commanding Lee and his associates x 
— who had lingered on in Paris, doing more mischief 
than ever, as being more desperate with rage — to 
return to the States. Once they arrived there, 
family interest was strong enough to secure for them 
not only immunity but reward, and to enable them 
to exercise their animosity, if not to achieve their 
vengeance, upon the name of Franklin for many 
years. 

It is time now to say something about what was, 
from first to last, the chief subject of Franklin's 
labours in Europe, and the special sphere of his vic- 
tories : the Financing of the Revolution. That is a 

1 William Lee and Izard. John Adams had returned to the 
States early in the year, upon the joint-Commission being can- 
celled. He had even expressed an emphatic approval of that 
" masterly stroke," as he called it. 

295 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

subject which would require for its proper setting 
forth, merely in a historical and descriptive way, an 
article fully as long as this memoir. Only a page 
or two are here available in which to indicate briefly 
some of the causes and the conditions of his task, 
and the way in which he achieved it. 

When the Colonists decided to accept the alter- 
native of a war with England rather than recede 
from their claims to essential autonomy, they esti- 
mated very imperfectly the vast reserves of power 
at the disposal of a great and organised Kingdom. 
Still less did they estimate fully the effect which 
their own want of organisation was likely to have 
in keeping them weak, in spite of vitality and a 
stubborn purpose to be free. Of course they 
entered upon the war with scarce a vestige of that 
material provision which is a primary requisite, a 
condition taken for granted, whenever civilised 
peoples enter upon the long and exhausting labour 
of murdering each other in masses large enough to 
cover a field or fill a landscape. But this want of 
material provision was a small thing compared to the 
want of means of remedying the defect, the want of 
means of mobilising the resources of the country tc 
that good end : in other words, the want of a 
Government. Whatever the improvised body called 
Congress might be, it was not in those days a 
Government ; and in its varied lack of organic 
powers, the most vital deficiency was the lack of 
power to raise a revenue. Of three makeshifts in 
lieu of that power which were within its function, 
one served for a time, and served disastrously. 
The second served all the time, but not well enough 
to ensure success or to keep disaster at a year's 
distance. If the third, and the least likely of all, 
served incomparably well and to victorious effect, 
that was because this expedient was entrusted to a 
man in whose hands an oaten straw became as strong 

296 



HIS LATER LIFE 

as a quarter-staff in those of others, and to whom 
the utter desperation of things was but a casual 
difficulty to be removed by thought and patience. 
The expedient was that of borrowing money upon 
the sole credit of a young nation fighting for exist- 
ence against the greatest power in the world. 

Naturally the attempt to do anything so difficult 
did not occupy a prominent place in the plans of 
Congress at first. Danger and need compelled 
recourse to it. But the attempt having once or 
twice succeeded beyond expectation, though not 
beyond demand, the lesson of experience was sagely 
remembered and confidently put to use. To borrow 
money abroad at intervals, and at intervals that grew 
shorter and shorter, soon became a main part of the 
budget of such substitute for a Chancellor of the 
Exchequer as the inchoate Government of the 
United States then possessed. Which means that 
that Government depended more and more upon 
Franklin to keep it, and the whole system of things 
to which it belonged, in existence. It was his 
business to maintain the struggle for Independence 
by his great labours at this side of the world as 
truly as it was "Washington's at that. And for the 
upholding of the cause in Europe his services were 
as great, his qualities as perfect, his trials as constant 
and more severe, his personality as indispensable to 
the saving of the situation from day to day, and the 
achievement of a crowning success in the end, as 
those of Washington in America. The story of the 
financing of the Revolution by the one is indeed the 
necessary counterpart of the story, more obviously 
epic, of the captaining of its armies by the other; 
and of the two, this is not the less heroic. The 
greater difficulty of making this story interesting to 
readers does not affect us here, where obvious lack 
of space, and the scheme of this article, preclude the 
effort to try. A word or two only must be said of 

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the two main forms which those ceaseless demands 
for money and aid, the burden of his days and 
nights during seven years, were wont to take. 

The first was, a demand for loans, usually in 
impossible amounts. An effective borrowing power 
was one of the advantages immediately accruing to 
Congress from Franklin's presence in Europe ; and 
as soon as the fact was perceived, it was taken into 
account for all, and if possible for more than all, it 
was worth. First and last, it was worth an additional 
annual revenue, without which, under the existing 
condition of semi-organisation and the essential separa- 
tism of the States, the flag could not have been kept 
flying at all. And it was Franklin, and Franklin 
alone, who could find that revenue ; for no other 
American had a grain of personal weight or influence 
with those whom it was necessary to deal with for 
these occasions, and who had to be induced to make 
efforts that were often extremely difficult, with the 
best will in the world to oblige. A stage was soon 
reached, and it was reached again too often, when 
he found it even difficult to set out upon the errand 
enjoined him : the demand would be so impracticably 
large, or (more often) would come so unconscionably 
quick upon the heels of the granting of one which 
had been a difficult business, but which (he had told 
himself and others) would be the last for many 
months. This was what he called " an after-clap " ; 
and indeed his life was passed in a kind of sporadic 
thunderstorm of such claps and after-claps in those 
years. The other guise in which the demands upon 
his influence came may rather be compared to a snow- 
storm. Congress soon got into a way of taking his 
success for granted, and would draw upon him freely 
on the strength of a loan which had yet to be 
negotiated. Perhaps the first mention of the said 
loan, and a shower of bills for the absorption 
thereof, would reach him by the same post or the 

298 



HIS LATER LIFE 

same packet. Still worse, it got into a way of 
drawing upon him for great total amounts, in a 
bewildering multitude of bills of all denominations, 
without any reference to a given loan, and with 
but a bare general intimation that it was doing so, 
or had done so ; and sometimes without even that. 
Whatever transaction Congress engaged in that 
had its reference and effect in Europe, that effect 
was a burden thrown upon Franklin. If it sent 
other patriots thither on " financial missions," the 
result was only that Franklin had to keep those 
missionaries alive, besides taking up, "for the 
honour of Congress," the bills which Congress 
had drawn upon them. Not one of them could 
ever raise a shilling. And he himself had prac- 
tically but one resource : his influence, essentially 
a personal and individual influence, with the French 
ministry. Congress seems to have imagined it was im- 
possible to exhaust that resource, or had no reluct- 
ance to abuse that influence. 1 Franklin both feared 
the one — a fear entirely for his country's sake — and 
had, in regard to the other, scruples that are nobly 
to his credit. But his patriotism, his one duty of 
leaving no effort unmade when his country required 
him, had always the last word, and bade him go 
forth once more. And if he went often when 
the circumstances were such that he felt, and felt 
with unselfish resentment, that the dignity of 
America was being made questionable in the eyes of 
strangers, and his own opinion of Congress was for 
the moment, at least, anything but high — yet he 
went : and he never went in vain. The fact that 
he had, in many cases, to ask for what he him- 
self felt to be unreasonable and knew to be difficult 
— this was one of the circumstances which made 
his service so hard. But there were more such 

1 More accurately, the devil drove, and it could not help itself; 
though folk in Europe did not quite see that, not even Franklin. 

299 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

circumstances — moral circumstances, material cir- 
cumstances — than it is even possible to glance at 
here. He had no help, not even sufficient clerical 
help, and he had powerful plotting enemies, this 
one man whose call and mission it was to keep 
the credit of his country among the nations of 
the world, to provide for all her manifold pur- 
poses and outlays in Europe, and even, in large 
part, for the effective maintenance of the war of 
liberation within her borders. What it cost him, 
in mental and moral wear and tear, to have 
rendered these services, we cannot estimate, but 
we may say with confidence that it was more 
than any other man then living in the world had 
it in him to have paid. 

At least it was not paid in vain : and the greatest 
effort, perhaps, which he ever put forth is memor- 
ably associated with Washington's final campaign of 
triumph. The gravity with which all men in America, 
and chiefly Washington, looked forward to the cam- 
paign of 1 78 1 is matter of history ; so is the resolu- 
tion of England to end the rebellion that year. It 
was then that Congress wrote to Franklin with such 
urgency as it had seldom used. It was then that 
Washington himself wrote to Franklin, virtually 
saying that it now Jay with him, away there in 
Passy, to save his country, if she was to be saved 
at all. And it was then that Franklin, who was 
at that hour at the utter end of all effort, not 
sheerly miraculous, made one effort more : and 
pleading in this direction, and pressing in that, 
and making advantage for his country in all, 
accumulated a more generous subsidy of money 
and aids for the imperilled cause than ever before. 
With this vital reinforcement the campaign of 
1 78 1 — marked beyond all others by energy, dash 
and brilliance, not less than by victory — began. 
It closed, for all the purposes of history, when 

300 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Lord Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown on the 
19th of October. And then, though Franklin's 
labours were not at an end, at least his work was 
achieved: for the Independence of America was 
won beyond recall. 

If his financial troubles were not yet over, that 
was because it was still to be proved that Yorktown 
was really the End. The war against the European 
allies was prosecuted for some months longer, and 
operations would even have been resumed in America, 
could King George have had his way. But the 
country was determined to support him no further 
in a folly that had brought so many losses and so 
much disgrace, and this feeling was voiced by 
Parliament in such terms as even he could not dis- 
regard. On the 20th of March 1782, Lord North's 
Administration (so-called) fell ; which means that 
the king was compelled to dismiss his sorely-tried 
favourites and to resign the government of the 
country into the hands of statesmen. The men 
who were now called to power, and who really 
had a commission from the country to end the war, 
were all old-time friends to Franklin and to the 
American cause : Rockingham, Shelburne, Conway, 
Burke, Dunning, Howe, to say nothing of Charles 
James Fox, who had visited Franklin at Passy. A 
friendly letter from Franklin to Shelburne on 
March 22, deftly set a-going what two hemispheres 
were anxiously expecting — the Negotiations for 
Peace. And vastly interesting Negotiations they pre- 
sently proved. All the circumstances which go to 
make the secret history of great treaties and great 
diplomatic congresses so ravishing were here present 
in a very high degree, but I can only call attention to 
one fact that made for complexity and had its moral 
consequences. America belonged to that " Northern 
department," of the foreign world over which Lord 
Shelburne, as it happened, exercised official cog- 

301 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

nisance : whereas France belonged to the " Southern 
department," and here Mr Fox was the presiding 
genius. Consequently, the envoy who should treat 
with Franklin was appointed by Shelburne, and was 
answerable to him alone ; while he who should treat 
with de Vergennes was one who came and went at 
the bidding of Mr Fox. The envoy of Shelburne 
was Mr Richard Oswald, a retired merchant, whose 
talent as a negotiator consisted in an absolute honesty 
and guilelessness which is only to be found in his 
(and my) dear country. 1 In their earlier, tentative 
conferences, Franklin managed to negotiate in such 
a way as to make the question at issue concern, not 
the independence of America, which he took for 
granted, but how much England was prepared to 
surrender along with the Colonies. He was playing 
for Canada, Nova Scotia, and, in fine, for the residue 
of this poor country's possessions in North America : 
though he was willing that she should keep the 
Islands. 2 And, by all appearance, he was playing a 
winning game, when the introcession of his partner 
spoilt his hand. The Peace Commission consisted 
of four members, of whom he alone was virtually 
"in office " at this time. John Jay was in Madrid, 
John Adams in Holland, and Henry Laurens a 
prisoner (or very lately a prisoner) in England. 
Sudden ill-health caused Franklin to summon Jay 
to his assistance, who arrived at the end of June. 
Now Jay was the most estimable American of his 
generation and almost the most likeable, but he was 
not a cosmopolite. He was apt to feel that foreigners 

1 Though a London merchant, Oswald was a pure Scot. He 
was quite a stranger to Franklin, pace an important History of 
the United States, which apparently confuses him with David 
Hartley. 

8 Meaning, of course, not Great Britain and Ireland, but the 
West India Islands. They were commonly referred to in the 
Colonies, and even in England, as the Islands in those days. 
The bad habit of ignoring their geographical relation to America 
is a product of later ignorance. 

302 



HIS LATER LIFE 

were strange folk, anyhow ; and now, with or with- 
out good reason, he became possessed by a spirit of 
suspicion so sincere that it would be easy to make 
fun of it. "With or without information on the point, 
he was convinced that when the diplomatists of 
Europe met round a table, no Americans being 
present, they would certainly arrange matters, on 
terms of mutual accommodation, to the disadvantage 
of America. Seeing ulterior motives and sinister 
designs where Franklin saw nothing but an 
ordinary effect of official conservatism, he took 
alarm at the term " Plantations or Colonies " in the 
formal commission to treat which was given to 
Oswald early in July. Until these fears were 
removed by the substitution of "The United 
States," business had to stand still. Then, at the 
end of September, the time was gone by for asking 
Canada, Nova Scotia, etc. And now enters John 
Adams, full of satisfaction with himself on the 
score of some successes among the Dutch money- 
lenders, but still fuller of a certain secret resentment, 
the origin of which has been referred to on the 
margin of a former page. Therefore he now ex- 
pressed his approval of Mr Jay's noble conduct with 
aggressive emphasis : an emphasis in which there 
speaks the humourless patriot, but still more the 
provincial ; and, more than either patriot or pro- 
vincial, the bitter, wounded, vain man with a 
rankling grudge, happy to take or support any 
course which he knew to be contrary to the feel- 
ing and sense of his illustrious colleague. John Jay 
next renewed his proposal that they should not com- 
municate with the French ministry regarding the pro- 
gress of their negotiations with England : and John 
Adams impressively approved. The commission was 
instructed by Congress to do nothing without the 
knowledge and concurrence of their generous ally ; 
but these two now said they would break that 

303 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

instruction without a scruple. This placed Franklin 
in a difficult position, and whatever course he took 
he could hardly be in the right. But he saw that 
the greater evil would be to place himself in conflict 
with his colleagues just then. The juncture was 
critical. Ministerial changes in England were antici- 
pated which might quash the peace negotiations even 
yet and reopen the war. In the interests of all it 
was desirable that not an hour should be wasted in 
conflict or friction of any sort. He therefore gave 
in, without further protest, to the will of the 
majority. 

This was in October, and matters now went on 
apace. "Waiving details, there were three questions 
of outstanding difficulty ; questions upon which each 
party was either very sure of its right, or greatly 
interested in asserting one. The first, second, and 
third of these were disputed on behalf of the States 
with good effect by Jay, Adams, and Franklin 
respectively. Jay upheld manfully the right of the 
States to expand westward, in defiance of some 
restrictive Spanish claims which England was in- 
clined to favour. Adams vindicated the claim of 
the States to share in the Newfoundland fisheries 
— not as a liberty granted by men or treaties, but 
as a right belonging to them from the creation of 
things — in a fine burst of angry eloquence in which 
we have, for the only time in Europe, I think, a 
glimpse of the better John Adams. But the third 
question was the one that, from the very beginning 
of the negotiations, had been found most intractable. 
It had often been taken up, and been often put aside 
again. Up to the last moment it appeared that upon 
this question the treaty would be wrecked, even 
within sight of signature. It was the question of 
compensation to the Loyalists, or those Americans 
who had decided to stand by their king rather than 
their country when the sundering hour had come in 

304 



HIS LATER LIFE 

'76. If anything could exceed the opposition to 
such a claim by American feeling and American 
opinion, it was the stress laid upon maintaining it 
by the English government and people. When 
they had lost so much, and saved so little honour, 
they were not going to forsake their friends in the 
act of settlement. It was an honest feeling, though 
the thought involved in it had certainly been sub- 
mitted to insufficient analysis. The reasons for a 
very different feeling towards those unfortunates 
on the part of their countrymen will readily 
occur to the reader. No man in America was 
more convinced than Franklin that the Loyalists 
(or Royalists, as he called them) ought to accept the 
consequences of having warred unprosperously 
against their own land and its liberties. He was 
none the less inflexible in that opinion because his 
own son, William Franklin, the late governor of 
New Jersey, was among those Royalists and 
now living as a refugee in England. When the 
question was brought up again at the end of 
November, the English commissioners (there were 
now three) made a heroic attempt to carry their 
point : and it appeared that if they should not 
succeed, there must be a deadlock to the whole 
process of peace-making. It was then that Franklin 
quietly drew from his pocket a piece of paper stating 
an unexpected counter-claim, so cogent, and of such 
a kind, that, rather than face it or dispute it, the 
English commissioners gave up their point at once, 
and also conceded, without further debate, the other 
American claims that were still under consideration. 
All the many difficulties were gone like a dream. 
On the day (November 30, 1782) following this 
" masterly stroke," the preliminary treaty was 
sealed, signed, and delivered. 

So far good. But to Franklin now fell the not very 
agreeable duty of announcing this happy consumma- 

305 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tion to de Vergennes : of telling him, namely, that 
his American allies had carried their negotiations to 
a conclusion without once communicating with him, 
and had settled all questions between themselves 
and England without even the semblance of a respect 
for the interests of France. The fact that this was 
but a preliminary treaty, and that it definitely con- 
cluded nothing, did not lessen the extreme peculiarity, 
to employ a mild phrase, of the course taken by the 
American commissioners. But it enabled Franklin 
to offer, for what he acknowledged to have been " a 
lack of bienseance? an ostensible excuse or extenua- 
tion, which de Vergennes made a virtue of accept- 
ing. He divined, however, that his old friend had 
a better excuse which he was bound in honour not 
to plead, and that his own disposition had been 
overborne by his colleagues. Regarding them, he 
said a little later, " They do not pretend to recognise 
the rules of courtesy towards us : " which was a 
little hard on Jay, though no injustice to Adams. 
At any rate peace was secured, and by this secrecy 
and celerity was snatched, apparently, from compli- 
cations and perils that would soon have subverted 
the labours of all the peacemakers. 1 The definitive 

1 For it must be added that in so profoundly distrusting the 
intentions of the other Allies towards America at the last stage of 
their adventure in common, Jay was either acting more wisely 
than he knew, or else was possessed of definite knowledge which 
he did not impart to either of his colleagues, certainly not to 
both of them. I am not aware that the latter supposition has 
ever been proved, and I think it is unlikely. He seems to have 
been influenced by a certain intercepted document, which was 
also known to Franklin, but which was not sufficient to shake 
Franklin's confidence in the good faith of his friends. Neverthe- 
less, the more recent opening of the archives has shown that 
when Spain became a party to the Alliance in 1779, the price of 
that accession of strength was a Secret Treaty between France and 
Spain, containing articles which were likely to have greatly 
prejudiced the interests of America when it came to settling the 
terms of peace. 

It ought also to be added, to avert misconception on the part 
of English readers who do not know their men, that though 

306 



HIS LATER LIFE 

Treaty of Peace which was signed about a year 
later (September 3, 1783) was virtually identical, 
as far as concerned America, with this preliminary 
treaty, negotiated so ably by Jay, Adams, and 
Franklin; in which, to the astonishment of all the 
world and the disgust of a large part of it, the 
Americans got everything and gave nothing. 

Franklin was kept long enough in France to be a 
signatory to the definitive treaty, though he had 
asked leave to return to America shortly after the 
preliminary treaty was achieved. Congress ignored 
his request, which was too reasonable a one for it to 
acknowledge and yet refuse. After the signing of 
the definitive treaty, he. again urged his desire to be 
released. Still no notice was taken, save that in 
August 1784 Jefferson was sent over to assist him 
in transacting the "commercial business" of the 
Republic: which business consisted in arranging 
commercial treaties with various ancient European 
kingdoms. Finally, in March 1 785, Congress passed 
a resolution j?'rmitting "the Honourable Benjamin 
Franklin to return to America as soon as convenient." 
Regarding the interval covered by those dates, I can 
only say that it was filled with public services, not 
more dignified, but less uneasy, than those of previous 
years ; and with the enjoyment of an official status 
and esteem, and an enthusiastic social respect and 
liking, that are unparalleled in the history of legations, 
if not of men. So when leave to return was at last 
granted, and the venerable old man set out from 
Passy upon his homeward journey one day in July, 

Franklin could not share Jay's suspicions against those whom hi 
had every reason to trust and feel grateful to f this difference did 
not indicate, nor create, any the smallest personal antagonism 
between the two men. Jay was not an Arthur Lee nor a John 
Adams — the only personal enemies Franklin ever had, and both 
of them monomaniacs of vanity — but cherished for Franklin, then 
and to the end of his life, an affection and a noble reverence 
which were equally an honour to both good men. 

307 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

it was, says Jefferson, " as if the village had lost its 
patriarch : " and the slow progress of his party 
towards the coast was marked by a series of ovations. 
It was indeed a sort of royal progress in other 
senses ; for upon it becoming known that the state 
of his health would ill stand the joltings of a long 
carriage journey, one of the Queen's litters was 
placed at his service. He carried with him also, 
besides written memorials of the approval and respect 
with which the court regarded his whole conduct 
while in France, a portrait of the King framed in 
four hundred and eight diamonds. From Havre he 
crossed to Southampton, to meet the ship that was 
appointed by Congress to bring him home. Every- 
thing, including the courtesies extended to him by 
the British government, went to make those few 
days on English soil a kind of moral Easter, a 
resurrection time of kinder feelings, if not of the 
old endearment. Here the old associates within 
possible reach rallied to him. Here he had a re- 
union and a sufficient reconciliation with his royalist 
son. And here, especially, he had three days of 
happy communion with his dearest English friends, 
the good Bishop of St Asaph and his family : who, 
not to lose an hour of his company till he sailed, 
came and took up their quarters at his inn. When 
the time came, they saw him aboard; and on the 
night of July 27 the good ship put to sea — home- 
ward bound. 

On September 13 she arrived in the Delaware, 
opposite Philadelphia. And behold, upon the shore, 
a vast multitude of people, filling the air with their 
huzzas and thrice-welcomes ! 



Again he had appeared just where and when he 
was needed. That was a fateful period in American 

308 



HIS LATER LIFE 

history, and we cannot doubt that a perception of 
the new dangers and the new needs of his country 
was among the things that had made him most 
eager to be home. The first effect of the cessation 
of war had been to reveal the imminence of anarchy, 
and all the evils due to an economic derangement, 
a social unsettlement, and a political inchoateness 
or invalidity, such as no country ever displayed on 
the morrow of its entry among the great nations 
of the earth. In the language of physiology, one 
may say that the United States was born non-viable 
according to all the accepted signs or criteria : and 
some who had viewed its birth as a hateful portent, 
now expected its timely decease as the rectification 
of an error of nature. There were many in 
America whose eyes strained seaward toward the 
home-coming Franklin as toward the one man whose 
coming would yet save the country : Americans, 
just like the English Government in 1 782, " ex- 
pected everything from the comprehensive mind of 
Dr Franklin." So, whatever he was coming home 
to do, it was apparently not to rest ; for it seemed 
that his countrymen would never recognise that he 
was an old man so long as he was a living one. 
His own Pennsylvania made the first demand upon 
him, as having the first claim ; as having, also, her 
own crisis as a commonwealth to weather, a crisis 
which was viewed with concern by all the other 
States. In the month following his arrival he was 
elected to the Legislative Council of Pennsyl- 
vania, and then made President of the State by an 
all but unanimous vote : his own vote being the 
only one cast against him. So it was in the follow- 
ing year, and so also in the third year ; at the end 
of which term, the law forbidding a fourth election 
of the same president permitted him to make his 
escape from office. During that time he did much 
to consolidate the political situation, and to improve 

309 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the social feeling and outlook in Pennsylvania. A 
peculiar care for public instruction still possessed 
him, and he was now able to carry out a long- 
cherished scheme of his, in the founding and 
inaugurating of a college for the education of 
young Germans ; an enormous part of the whole 
population of Pennsylvania — at one time about a 
third — being of that nationality. 

During one of these years, however, he rendered 
more important services upon a greater plane of 
things. A Convention of Delegates from all the 
States was appointed in 1787, and began its sittings 
on the 25th of May. Its mandate was to frame 
a Constitution, in which the country might know 
itself, and by which the Union might live. Despite 
his age and physical infirmities — for he was now 
in his eighty-second year, and racked by those two 
most agonising of ailments, stone and acute gout 
— it was felt to be needful that Franklin, not less 
than Washington, should be of that body. And 
it is doing no injustice, even to Washington, to 
say that the man in all that assembly whose 
presence could least have been spared was Franklin. 
Of the character of the Convention and the history 
of its momentous labours I can have few words 
to say here. As to the first, however, it is to be 
noted that, apart from the strife of interests as 
between State and State, the Convention was 
marked by a line of cleavage, then appearing for the 
first time and never afterwards obliterated or closed, 
but running through all American history. On 
the one side was the Strong-government or Federal 
party, headed by Hamilton, and sympathised with 
by Washington. On the other side was that party, 
associated with the name of Jefferson, but of which 
Franklin was really the moral father and founder: 
the party of those whose more anxious care was to 
give all possible scope to the principle of local 

3 l ° 



HIS LATER LIFE 

autonomy, and to safeguard the fact of popular 
freedom. 1 Franklin's voice was always in favour of 
the more generous provision, the ampler liberty ; 
was always earnestly opposed to whatever might 
tend to make governmental oppression at some 
future time possible, and still more to whatever 
could have a tendency to depress the self-respect 
or inhibit the honest ambition of the poorest man. 
Some of his finest utterances were in maintenance 
of that plea; and it is a symptom of the noble 
feeling with which Franklin was regarded by the 
noblest men, that Hamilton would give his support 
to Franklin's recommendations, though they were 
essentially moral criticisms of the policy which he 
himself thought best for the country. Many times 
in the course of the four months' labour of the 
Convention did Franklin's wisdom and his humour, 
and still more that spirit of cheerfulness and good- 
will, and that suggestion, which his every word 
somehow conveyed, of a common purpose animating 
them all alike, and making them all friends and 
assistants of each other in the same quest — many a 
time did this rare and complex talent of Franklin's 
remove a difficulty, or inspire the right temper in 
which to approach it. Yet there was one question 
upon which, it seemed, for all that could be argued 
by the ablest or urged by the best, the Union 
must go to pieces. This was the question of the 
proportion in which the different States, varying 
so vastly as they did in size and population 
and wealth and historical importance, should be 
represented in the Legislature. The small States, 
like New Jersey, claimed to count equally 

1 Called at first Republican, and at a later time Democratic. 
The two terms are now opposed, the latter designating the 
school of Franklin and Jefferson, and the former — a more Ancient 
Influence in human affairs, I suspect. 

§11 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

with great ones, like Pennsylvania and Virginia. 
Round this question it was war utter and un- 
compromising : war to the death, or to the dis- 
ruption of the Union. For those who were in 
the right could not give way, and those who were 
in the wrong would not. A way out was found in 
the end by Franklin, who, not in one act, but by 
two approximations, developed his plan for allaying 
the fears of the little States, lest they be overborne, 
and yet saving the larger ones from what would 
have become, had it been practicable at all, a tyranny 
as impudent as it was unjust. The plan was to have 
two Houses, and give a proportional representation 
in the one and an equal representation in the other, 
and to divide or balance their functions so as to 
secure just government for the whole. This, the 
central or the basic article in the Constitution of the 
United States, was a gift of Franklin to his country 
not unworthy to rank with his earlier services. And 
when at last the draft Constitution was framed, and 
it was time to put it to the House for acceptance in 
its entirety, that it might then be submitted to the 
nation for approval, it was Franklin who carried it 
over its final perils by a speech of matchless wisdom, 
tolerance, and humour. His labours had the only 
reward which a heart like his could desire. For 
though but two and a half years of life remained to 
him when the Convention finished its work in 
September 1 787, he yet lived long enough to see 
justified that confidence in the good-citizen qualities 
of his countrymen, and that faith in the great future 
of the nation, which he had held unwaveringly, and 
without an effort, in the midst of conditions and in 
spite of signs that had seemed to other men desperate. 
Yet even the termination of his third Presidentship 
of Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1788, if it ended 
his official career, did not end his public services. 

312 



HIS LATER LIFE 

He still plied, from time to time, a pen that influenced 
opinion, in spite of anonymity, as no other could. 
Some of the wisest and wittiest of his writings belong 
to the last two years of his life, so full of suffering as 
those years were. Most of that period was passed in 
bed, and the intermissions of agonising pain were few 
and brief; yet through all he kept at bay alike the 
dullness of old age and the peevishness of physical 
distress. His last public act was to forward, as 
President of an Abolition Society, a memorial to 
Congress asking it "to devise a means of removing 
this inconsistency [the maintenance of negro slavery] 
from the character of the American people." His 
last contribution to literature was a brilliant letter, 
signed " Historicus," in refutation of a pro-slavery 
speech in Congress. That was on March 23, 1790. 
He was now bearing up, with patience though not 
with success, against a crushing combination of 
maladies. One day his breathing ceased altogether, 
and he was thought to be dead. But he rallied, and 
at once resumed his cheerful and benevolent interest 
in all good causes and efforts. On April 17 he 
passed into a state of coma, and died in the evening 
about ten o'clock. 

His own State honoured him with great obsequies ; 
and Congress voted that " the uslqI badge of 
mourning be worn for a month." It was not much. 
But it was all the recognition of Franklin's un- 
equalled services which Congress had ever vouch- 
safed to make. The true scene of national mourn- 
ing for the death of Franklin was in France ; and 
there the most striking tributes, both of affection 
and of intellectual commemoration by the greatest 
men, were paid to his worth. Later generations of 
Americans have recognised with pain that the glories 
of their Revolution are a little imperfect because of 
an act of justice forgone, are a little dimmed to all 

313 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

honest eyes by an appearance of insufficient grati- 
tude — even the costless gratitude of a " thank you " 
was begrudged — to such a servant, citizen, and 
patriot as no other country ever had in the history 
of man. 



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